IT Ethics: A Learner Focussed Approach

Jim Underwood, Laurel Evelyn Dyson, Bruce Campbell Faculty of Information Technology Presented at the UTS Teaching and Learning Forum, 14th-15th November 2007, Sydney This presentation describes IT Professional and Society, a final year core subject in the B.Sc. in IT. Introduced in 2004, this was the first attempt by the Faculty of IT to deal with ethics, professional practice and social impacts of IT at an advanced level. Having technically oriented students engage in deep learning about ethical and social issues presented a number of challenges, particularly in a course with a strong emphasis on individual assessment. These challenges included: maintaining student interest, encouraging open discussion, eliciting student responses that were genuine rather than compliant, and dealing with a wide variety of philosophical, political and religious attitudes among both students and staff. A number of activities evolved to address these challenges: an emphasis on student presentations and guest lecturers rather than UTS staff lectures; the discussion of basic principles and issues through assessed discussion groups on UTSOnline; tutorial presentations and discussions on recent relevant media reports; and an in depth report on a socially relevant IT project. Students graduating from professionally oriented courses are expected to have an understanding of ethics relevant to the practice of their profession. Information Technology is no exception, and over the years a variety of approaches have been tried, often including an ethics component in other subjects. Although theoretically sound, such embedded components usually become neglected, as other components of the subject are found more interesting by students and easier to assess by staff. In 2004 a new final year core undergraduate subject, IT Professional and Society, was introduced. This was originally designed by Laurel Dyson and Bruce Campbell, and later taught and modified by Laurel Dyson and Jim Underwood. The stated objectives of the subject included: understanding the social impact of IT, the social, professional and legal responsibility of IT professionals, the role of professional societies and codes of ethics; and having each student develop a personal ethical framework with respect to their work in IT. The objectives of the subject designers included: maintaining student interest; avoiding students taking the texts and staff statements as the final authority; challenging the students' existing ethical assumptions; going beyond prescriptions and the view that society and IT are adversaries; and taking account of the diversity of student background and beliefs. As the subject evolved three different activities developed, based on the concerns of the different staff evolved. From his experience with other subjects, Bruce Campbell suggested that students would be more interested in discussing current issues. Thus the majority of tutorial work is centered on a discussion of a recent newspaper or web article on a topic related to IT and society. The article is chosen and the discussion led by a student team. Marks are allocated to both the team and other class members for their contributions. Laurel Dyson has worked with introducing IT into indigenous communities, and was concerned that students be aware of both good' and bad social impacts; she was also concerned to enhance students' research skills. A list of specific IT projects with social objectives was prepared and (larger)

student teams were each assigned to study one of these projects. Results were presented to the class and in a report. The class presentations made students aware of a wide range of socially relevant IT applications. Jim Underwood was concerned that students relate questions of IT ethics to more general ethical questions, and that they become aware of the wide variety of ethical principles. Students were required to engage in online discussions with the rest of the class on ethical issues of their choice. Although we have not undertaken formal evaluations, the structuring of the subject around these activities has meant that students are generating their own knowledge, and the level of engagement seems to be quite high for the majority of students.