Ethics of computer use: A survey of student attitudes: Working paper series--06-02

The potential for misuse of computer systems and resources has been an important issue for many years. The rapid growth in use of remote access systems, the use of the internet and distributed systems for financial and other sensitive transactions, and the expansion in the availability of products in digital form is causing ethical issues surrounding misuse of computer resources to become an increasingly serious problem. This paper surveys ethical attitudes of a set of undergraduate business majors. The survey presents sets of scenarios in which students are asked to indicate whether a particular action is ethical or unethical using a 7 level Likert scale. Alternative base scenarios have been designed to present ethical issues relating to various types of unauthorized access to computer resources. Other sets of base scenarios focus on the use of computers to illegally copy products (software and music recordings). In addition, for each base scenario, alternative sub-scenarios are presented in which the motives of the individual vary between intellectual curiosity, securing resources for personal use, profit, and malice toward the affected entity. The scenarios are designed to provide an evaluation of how the level of malicious intent in the action affects the students' perception of the degree to which the action represents a breach of ethics. Results of this survey suggest that the intent of the individual engaging in unauthorized access or illegal copying does substantially affect student perceptions of the degree to which the behavior is a violation of ethics. In general, actions undertaken for profit or malicious intent are judged to be less ethical than the same actions undertaken for intellectual curiosity or to secure resources for personal use. In addition, a very strong majority of the students surveyed believe that any active participation in downloading is unethical

Start a revolution in your head! The rebirth of ICT ethics education

This paper is a viewpoint rather than grounded in research. It questions some of the established ICT norms and traditions which exist both in industry and academia. The aim is to review current ICT ethics educational strategy and suggest a repositioning which aligns with the concept of computing by everyone for everyone. Professional bodies, in their current role, have little influence on 97 percent of global software developers whose ethical code and attitude to social responsibility comes from elsewhere. There needs to be a radical change in how the ethical and social responsibility dimension of ICT is included in education of the whole population rather than focusing on the elitist computing professional community. It is against this backdrop that this paper explores new avenues for widening education, both formal and informal, to all those who may become involved in computing. The discussion concludes by laying out a new pathway for ICT ethics education which embraces people of all ages and all walks of life

ADAPTATION OF INTERNET ETHICAL ATTITUDE SCALE TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: COMPARISON OF INTERNET ETHICAL ATTITUDES ACCORDING TO STUDENTS’ DEPARTMENTS

Internet ethics is clearly an issue that concerns every Internet user closely no matter what their purpose is. Teachers are undoubtedly the ones to assume the most critical task at this stage. As persons who will shape future generations, teachers are expected to fully grasp the importance of Internet ethics in school years and display model behavior using the Internet fairly. The goal of this study is to adapt the Internet ethical attitude scale for students from secondary school to university and compare the ethical attitudes of participant students according to their genders and departments. The study was carried out with 294 students. The data was collected through the Internet Ethical Attitude Scale (IEAS) and personal information form designed by researchers. The results showed that female students had higher total scores and sub-factor scores in IEAS than male students. It is possible to say that female students are more conscientious than male students in the issue of Internet ethical attitudes. As in other factors, attitudes related to “homework plagiarism” are higher in female students than male students

The Association between Attitudes toward Computers and Understanding of Ethical Issues Affecting Their Use

This study examines the association between the attitudes of students toward computers and their knowledge of the ethical uses of computers. The focus for this research was undergraduate students in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences (Department of Computer Science), Business and Education at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas