This course is designed to familiarize students with professional practice in IT, and to enable them to: identify ethical conflicts, identify their responsibilities and options, and think through the implications of possible solutions to ethical conflicts.

CSE 219 or CSE 260 or ISE 305

Students understand and can apply professional ethics.

• Students are aware of themselves as members of a profession, with shared community principles.
• Students are aware of the ethical implications of their professional choices, and of the communities (employer, customers, society at large) whose interests they serve.
• Students can apply ethical principles to resolve situations that arise in their professional lives.
• Students know of professional organizations that can help them deal with professional issues.

• Ethics in Information Technology, by George Reynolds. Thomson, 2003.

• Week 1: Ethics
  Objective: Students will understand that there are different ethics (personal, societal/cultural, religious, professional), and will be able to distinguish between them.
• Week 2: Professional practice
  Objective: Students will understand that IT is a profession, whose members agree to adhere to principles of professional practice. Students will learn to distinguish between their views on ethics and IT as individuals, and their roles and responsibilities as IT professionals.
• Week 3: Statement of professional practice
  Objective: Students will become familiar with one statement of professional practice adopted by a professional IT organization.
• Week 4: Computer crime
  Objective: Students will become familiar with: types of computer crime, possible solutions to computer crime, the gap between the law and types of computer crime, and their responsibilities as professionals to protect their customers and employers from becoming susceptible to computer crime.
• Week 5: Case study in computer crime
  Objective: Students will apply what they learned in week 4 to a case study. Possible case studies include:
  • Case 1 in Reynolds (pgs. 77-78, includes pointers to other readings)
  • Computer Encryption Software case study at http://onlineethics.org/edu/ncases/encryption1.html
  • The Machado case study at http://computingcases.org/case_materials/machado/machado_case_intro.html
• Week 6: Privacy
  Objective: Students will become familiar with the notion of privacy rights, relevant law and professional practice, and their roles as IT professionals to ensure the ethical use of data.
• Week 7: Case study in privacy
  Objective: Students will apply what they learned in week 5 to a case study. They should become familiar with conflicts between responsibility to the employer/client and responsibility to users/society at large.
• Week 8: Intellectual property
  Objective: Students will be come familiar with the notion of intellectual property, relevant law and professional practice, and their roles as IT professionals to respect the intellectual property of others.
• Week 9: Case study in intellectual property
  Objective: Students will apply what they learned in week 8 to a case study. They should become familiar with conflicts between responsibility to the employer/client and responsibility to other IT professionals/other clients.
• Week 10: Software engineering
  Objective:Students will become familiar with their responsibilities as software engineers to properly design, implement and test their software.
• Week 11, 12: Case studies in software engineering
  Objective: Students will apply what they learned in week 10 to case studies. They should become familiar with conflicts between responsibility to the employer/client and responsibility to their profession, users and society at large. They should be able to discuss the tradeoff between time and money constraints and "doing it right".
• Week 13: Employer/employee issues
  Objective: Students will become aware of their rights and responsibilities as future employees/employers in IT.
• Week 14: Case study in employer/employee issues
  Objective: Students will apply what they learned in week 13 to a case study. They should become familiar with conflicts between their responsibilities to other IT professionals, themselves and their employer/client.