Implementing the Tenth Strand - Page 4 of 18

ES1: Responsibility of the Computer Professional

Personal and professional responsibility must be the foundation for discussions of all topics in this subject area. Since student response to specific issues will be at least partly determined by the ways they understand their own individual responsibility, it is crucial for each student to understand that the ethical principles of honesty, fairness, autonomy, justice, and beneficence define personal responsibility. Personal responsibilities are those held in common with other people, regardless of technical expertise or position. They should not be thought of as the obligations of socially isolated individuals for they are often the result of group memberships, including family, political entities, cultures, and professional affiliations.

Professional responsibilities are those additional responsibilities that computing professionals should undertake because of their special knowledge and skill, their association with others who share that knowledge and skill, and the trust that society places in them because of that knowledge and skill. The knowledge of these responsibilities, and the practice of them, is fundamental to ethical thought and behavior among computer professionals. The five areas to be covered under the responsibility of the computer professional are:

1) history of the development and impact of computer technology,
2) why be ethical?
3) major ethical models,
4) definition of computing as a profession, and
5) codes of ethics and professional responsibility for computer professionals.

Recurring concepts: complexity, conceptual and formal models, consistency and completeness, tradeoffs and consequences

Lecture topics: (3 hours):

ES1.1 History of the development and impact of computer technology.
To set the stage for an understanding of the professionalism, ethics and social impact of computing, it is necessary for students to see how computing has evolved in the historical and social context. Tracing the history of the mechanization of computation, the development of programmable devices, and the evolution of information representation, transmission and storage will help students to understand how computers are a cultural artifact with profound social impact. When students realize how young the computing profession is relative to other professions and how rapidly it is changing, they have a better appreciation about why there are so many unresolved ethical and social issues with which they will have to deal.

ES1.2 Why be ethical?
Many students come to computer science with a hacker mentality; that is, they view the computer as a personal intellectual challenge, a test of their ability to solve logical problems and to control the computer. Such a narrow approach to computing emphasizes the relation between a solitary programmer and the computer. It implicitly denies any ethical responsibility or social obligation in the practice of computing skills. It is important to help students to become aware of the tremendous responsibility to other people that comes with the practice of their expertise. It is necessary to make a strong case for ethical behavior in the context of professional practice. Analogies with medicine, law, and engineering help students to understand the importance of ethical behavior.