Ethical Issues in Network System Design

Today, most desktop computers and PCs are networked that is, they have the ability to link to other machines, usually to access data and other information held remotely. Such machines may sometimes be connected directly to each other, as part of an office or company computer system. More frequently, however, connected machines are at a considerable distance from each other, typically connected through links to global systems such as the Internet, or WorldWideWeb (WWW). The networked machine itself may be anything from a powerful company computer with direct Internet connections, to a small hobbyist machine, accessing a bulletin board through telephone and modem. It is important to remember that, whatever the type or the location of networked machines, their access to the network, and the network itself, was planned and constructed following deliberate design considerations. In this paper I discuss some ways in which the technical design of computer systems might appropriately be influenced by ethical issues, and examine pressures on computer scientists and others to technically control networkrelated actions perceived as 'unethical'. After examination of the current situation, I draw together the issues, and conclude by suggesting some ethically based recommendations for the future design of networked systems

Management accounting education: is there a gap between academia and practitioner perceptions?

A mail survey was conducted of all Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand accredited Tertiary Education Institutions and 300 randomly selected New Zealand companies to ascertain the views of management accounting academics and practitioners on the contents of management accounting courses and the skills and competencies of recent graduates. The results show that practitioners placed an emphasis on traditional management accounting techniques, while academics placed an emphasis on contemporary techniques. Both groups were in agreement on the skills and characteristics required of recent graduates. An interesting finding was the emergence of negative comments on the arrogance of new graduates and an increased need for graduates to be work ready. These two aspects were not a feature of previous studies. The implications of the results are that academics cannot ignore the teaching of traditional management accounting techniques and may need to increase the coverage of the issues involved in implementing contemporary management accounting techniques

Introduction to location-based mobile learning

[About the book] The report follows on from a 2-day workshop funded by the STELLAR Network of Excellence as part of their 2009 Alpine Rendez-Vous workshop series and is edited by Elizabeth Brown with a foreword from Mike Sharples. Contributors have provided examples of innovative and exciting research projects and practical applications for mobile learning in a location-sensitive setting, including the sharing of good practice and the key findings that have resulted from this work. There is also a debate about whether location-based and contextual learning results in shallower learning strategies and a section detailing the future challenges for location-based learning

Human-agent collectives

We live in a world where a host of computer systems, distributed throughout our physical and information environments, are increasingly implicated in our everyday actions. Computer technologies impact all aspects of our lives and our relationship with the digital has fundamentally altered as computers have moved out of the workplace and away from the desktop. Networked computers, tablets, phones and personal devices are now commonplace, as are an increasingly diverse set of digital devices built into the world around us. Data and information is generated at unprecedented speeds and volumes from an increasingly diverse range of sources. It is then combined in unforeseen ways, limited only by human imagination. People’s activities and collaborations are becoming ever more dependent upon and intertwined with this ubiquitous information substrate. As these trends continue apace, it is becoming apparent that many endeavours involve the symbiotic interleaving of humans and computers. Moreover, the emergence of these close-knit partnerships is inducing profound change. Rather than issuing instructions to passive machines that wait until they are asked before doing anything, we will work in tandem with highly inter-connected computational components that act autonomously and intelligently (aka agents). As a consequence, greater attention needs to be given to the balance of control between people and machines. In many situations, humans will be in charge and agents will predominantly act in a supporting role. In other cases, however, the agents will be in control and humans will play the supporting role. We term this emerging class of systems human-agent collectives (HACs) to reflect the close partnership and the flexible social interactions between the humans and the computers. As well as exhibiting increased autonomy, such systems will be inherently open and social. This means the participants will need to continually and flexibly establish and manage a range of social relationships. Thus, depending on the task at hand, different constellations of people, resources, and information will need to come together, operate in a coordinated fashion, and then disband. The openness and presence of many distinct stakeholders means participation will be motivated by a broad range of incentives rather than diktat. This article outlines the key research challenges involved in developing a comprehensive understanding of HACs. To illuminate this agenda, a nascent application in the domain of disaster response is presented

Professional Ethics and Social Responsibility: Military Work and Peacebuilding

The paper considers a number of important questions related to the involvement of engineers in peacebuilding and military work, including the preference of many countries for high tech weapons based security over peacebuilding, whether and in what circumstances, if any, it is justified for engineers to be involved in military work; and how engineers can persuade their colleagues to apply their skills to support peacebuilding. It is introduced by an overview of what is meant by the term military work and the extent and consequences of the use of military technology worldwide. This is followed by the applications of different approaches and theories of ethics to discuss the questions presented in the introduction. The approaches and theories applied include considerations of micro-and macro-ethics, codes of ethics, virtue ethics, considerations of gender and paradigms and the ethical imperative. Initial insights include the importance of considering the associated context and the need to avoid othering, which can make different treatment of minority groups, including the use of high tech weapons against them, seem acceptable

Enhancing reuse of data and biological material in medical research : from FAIR to FAIR-Health

The known challenge of underutilization of data and biological material from biorepositories as potential resources formedical research has been the focus of discussion for over a decade. Recently developed guidelines for improved data availability and reusability—entitled FAIR Principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability)—are likely to address only parts of the problem. In this article,we argue that biologicalmaterial and data should be viewed as a unified resource. This approach would facilitate access to complete provenance information, which is a prerequisite for reproducibility and meaningful integration of the data. A unified view also allows for optimization of long-term storage strategies, as demonstrated in the case of biobanks.Wepropose an extension of the FAIR Principles to include the following additional components: (1) quality aspects related to research reproducibility and meaningful reuse of the data, (2) incentives to stimulate effective enrichment of data sets and biological material collections and its reuse on all levels, and (3) privacy-respecting approaches for working with the human material and data. These FAIR-Health principles should then be applied to both the biological material and data. We also propose the development of common guidelines for cloud architectures, due to the unprecedented growth of volume and breadth of medical data generation, as well as the associated need to process the data efficiently.peer-reviewe

Information Systems Undergraduate Degree Project: Gaining a Better Understanding of the Final Year Project Module

The place of an individual project in the final year of Information Systems (IS) undergraduate degrees at UK universities is well established. In this paper we compare the final year project modules at four UK universities: the University of Brighton, the University of South Wales, University of West London and the University of Westminster. We find that the aims of the projects are similar, emphasising the application of the knowledge and skills from the taught element of their course in a complex development project, often including interactions with a real client. Although we show in this analysis that projects serve a similar purpose in the IS degree courses, the associated learning outcomes and the assessment practice varies across the institutions. We identify some gaps in the skills and abilities that are not being assessed. In further work we are planning to consult final year students undertaking their projects and their supervisors, in order to gain an understanding of how project assessment criteria are actually put to use