Departmental Responsibility Professor Simon Rogerson Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility De Montfort University

Departmental principles Collective responsibility Avoid knowledge without moral application Vigilance concerning shortcomings in ICT applications

The thin ethical ice Well, maybe just this once... or No one will ever know... or Everyone does it. or even We didnt have this conversation

The profession Profession is global in action and reach Lifelong practice Accept higher duty of care Balanced approach

Professional bodies Departments should promote a culture of social responsibility BCS, IMIS ACM/IEEE-CS codes offer a platform on which to build. Such codes should be adopted departments.

Departmental Action Attitudes and actions The curriculum Holistic view QAA body of knowledge Location and process Mindful of accreditation Staff leadership

LevelFocusInstruments 1 Awareness of issues, obligations and responsibilities Induction Modules 2 Resolving practical problems Modules Placement preparation 3 Reflection and critique of ESR issues, consolidation of skills, specialist study Project Modules Ethics - specific modules Ethics – location

Ethics - process Use of exercises, examples and illustrations with ethical or social twists. Example In a programming module a programming assignment could be to write the software for a pacemaker. The ramifications of this could be explored as part of a post-mortem of the exercise. Coverage of specific aspects of ESR related to particular modules. Some typical examples Ecommerce module would cover trust in the trading relationship. HCI module would include issues of interface design for the visually impaired. Students could be asked to produce an ESR statement as part of an assignment or tutorial exercise.

Teacher as Role Model (C Stephenson, 2000) Ethical student/teacher relationships Deal consistently and fairly with students Maintain confidentiality of student information Discuss ethical standards and expectations with students Follow the laws regarding hardware and software use and abuse

Ethics and Social Responsibility Skills students must understand the causal relationship between bad/good practice and bad/good systems