Professionalization of Software Engineering and Its Significance for Ethics Education

In May of 1993, the Board of Governors of the IEEE-CS established a steering committee for evaluating, planning, and coordinating actions related to establishing software engineering as a profession. In that same year the ACM Council endorsed the establishment of a Commission on Software Engineering. By January of 1994, both societies formed a joint committee `To establish the appropriate set(s) of standards for professional practice of Software Engineering upon which industrial decisions, professional certification, and educational curricula can be based.\u27 [IEEE-CS 1994] To accomplish these tasks they made the following recommendations: 1. adopt standard definitions, 2. define required body of knowledge and recommended practices, 3. define ethical standards, and 4. define educational curricula for undergraduate, graduate (MS) and continuing education (for retraining and migration)

Privacy Lost: The Net, Autonomous Agents, and \u27Virtual Information\u27

The positive qualities of the Internet-anonymity, openness, and reproducibility have added a new ethical dimension to the privacy debate. This paper describes a new and significant way in which privacy is violated. A type of personal information, called \u27virtual information\u27 is described and the effectiveness of techniques to protect this type of information is examined. This examination includes a discussion of technical approaches and professional standards as ways to address this violation of \u27virtual information.\u2

The Uniqueness of Software Errors and Their Impact on Global Policy

The types of errors that emerge in the development and maintenance of sofhvare are essentially different from the types of errors that emerge in the development and maintenance of engineered hardware products. There is a set of standard responses to actual and potential hardware errors, including: engineering ethics codes, engineering practices, corporate policies and laws. The essential characteristics of software errors require new ethical, policy, and legal approaches to the development ofsoftvare in the global arena

Ethics in Qualitative Studies of Commercial Software Enterprises Ethical Analysis

An ethical dilemma is presented to show how to resolve the tension between the goals of assuring the quality of research data on a current project while not compromising the confidentiality of private information gained from previous research. It is emphasized that once the tactical mistake had been made, it is possible to reason out from a utilitarian point of view and derive the solution to the problem at hand