Ethics for IT Professionals and IT Users

Prepared By: Bhanja kishor

MCA 1st SEM

IT PROFESSIONALSThe US code of Federal Regulations defines a person “employed in a

professional capacity” as one who meet these four criteria:

1. One’s primary duties consists of the performance of work requiring knowledge of an advance type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study or work.

2. One’s instruction, study, or work is original and creative in character in a recognized field of artistic endeavor and the result of which depends primarily on the invention, imagination, or talent of the employee.

3. One’s work requires the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in his performance.

4. One’s work is predominately intellectual and varied in character, and the output or result cannot b standardized in relation to given period of time.

Are IT Workers Professionals?

• A partial list of IT specialists are classified as “Professionals”

• Which includes programmers, system analyst, software engineers, database administrators, local area network (LAN) administrator, and chief information officers (CIOS).

• From a legal perspective, IT workers are not considered as professionals as because they are not licensed.

Relationships of IT Professionals

• Relationships Between IT professionals and Employers,

• Relationships Between IT professionals and Clients,

• Relationships Between IT professionals and Suppliers,

• Relationships Between IT professionals and Other Professionals

• Relationships Between IT professionals and IT Users and

• Relationships Between IT professionals and Society.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Employers

• An IT Professional and employer discuss and agree upon fundamentals aspects of this relationship before the professional accepts n employment offer.

• These fundamental aspects includes job title, general performance expectations, specific work responsibility, dress code, salary, work hours and company benefits.

• Few other aspects of the relationship develop over time as the need arise.

• For example- Whether the employee can leave early one day if the time is made up on another day.

• Some aspects are also addressed by law- for example, an employee cannot be required to do anything illegal such as falsify the results of a quality assurance test.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Employers

• Trade secrecy is an area that can cause problems between employers and IT professionals.

• A trade secrecy is information used in a business, generally to the public, that the company has taken strong measures to keep it confidential.

• For eg- S/W codes, H/W designs, plans etc.• Whistle –blowing can also create friction between

IT professional and employers.• Whistle-blowing is an effort of by an employee to

attract attention negligent, illegal, unethical or abusive act by a company that threatens the public interest.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Clients

• In this type, each party agrees to provide something of value to each other.

• Generally, IT professionals provides hardware, software, or services at a certain cost and within a given time period.

• The responsibility for decision making is shared between client and professionals.

• IT consultants or auditors can create ethical problems between IT professionals and clients for their own profit.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Suppliers

• Most IT professional understand that building a good relationship with suppliers encourages the flow of useful communication and sharing of ideas.

• IT professionals should not make unreasonable demands.

• Threatening to replace a supplier who can’t deliver materials on time will not help a working relationships .

• Suppliers also strive to maintain positive relationships with their customers to make and increase sales.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Suppliers

• Sometimes, suppliers offer an IT professionals a gift that is actually intended as a bribe.

• The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) makes it a crime to a foreign officals.

• This act applies to any U.S. citizen or company, or to any company with shared listed on any U.S. stock exchange.

• However, a bribe is not a crime if the payment was lawful under the law of foreign country in which it was paid.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Other

Professionals• Professionals feel a degree of loyality to

other professionals and they help each others.

• Experienced Professionals can acts as mentors and help develop new members of the profession.

• Resume inflation can cause ethical problems between professionals .

• It involves lying on a resume and claiming competence in an IT skill.

Relationships Between IT professionals and IT Users

• IT Professionals develop, install, service and support the product for IT Users.

• IT Users need the product to deliver organizational benefits.

• IT professionals established an environment that supports ethical behavior by users.

• Such environment discourages software piracy and inappropriate use of resources.

Relationships Between IT professionals and Society

• Society not only expects professionals not to cause harm, but to provide significant benefits.

• IT professionals have a relationship with others in society who may be affected by their action.

• However no formal organization that takes responsibility for establishing and maintaining standards that protect the public.

Professional Codes of Ethics

• A Professional code of ethics states the principles and core values that are essential to the work of a organizational group.

• It governs their behavior.

• For example- Doctors takes 2000-year-old Hippocratic oath.

Professional Codes of Ethics

• These codes improves ethical decision making.

• Promotes high standards of practice and ethical behavior.

• Enhances trust and repect from the general public.

• Provides an evaluation benchmark

Professional Organizations

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP)

• Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-CS)

• Project Management Institute (PMI)

Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)

• It’s a computing society founded in 1947.• Serves more than 80,000 professional in

more than 100 countries.• It sponsors special-interest groups that

focus on IT issues, artificial intelligence, programming languages, computer-human interaction and mobile computing.

• The ACM has its own code of ethics.

Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP)

• The AITP has its roots in chicao in 1951• A local group Machine Accountants

Association (MAA) evolved into Data Processing Management Association in 1962.

• And finally the AITP in 1996 with 9000 members.

• It provides quality IT-related education, information on IT issues and forums for networking.

• Mission is to provide superior leadership and education in IT

Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

(IEEE-CS)• One of the largest and oldest IT

Professionals associations, with more than 1,00,000 members founded in 1946.

• IT promote the exchange of information, ideas and technology innovations.

• In 1993, IEEE-CS and the ACM formed a joint committee for the Establishment of software Engineering as a Profession.

Project Management Institute (PMI)

• Established in 1969, currently more than 1,50,000 members across 150 countries.

• It has certified more than 1,00,000 people as project management professionals (PMPs).

• This certification requires a person to follow PMP code of Ethics, and pass the PMP exam .

Finally

THE END