1) In what ways are ethical, social, and political issues connected? Give some examples. Ethics refers to principles of right and wrong that individuals use to guide their behavior. Individuals act within a social environment that, in turn, exists within a political environment. Ethical dilemmas are problems that affect society and often are addressed in the political arena. For example, new computer technology makes it easier to gain private information about individuals, creating an ethical. Society will respond by demanding new laws to regulate the use of data. List and describe the key technological trends that heighten ethical concerns 1) computer power doubling every 18 months 2) rapid decline in data storage costs 3) data analysis advances 4) networking advances and the Internet. Differentiate between responsibility, accountability, and liability. Responsibility means that you accept the potential costs, duties, and obligations for the decisions you make. Accountability is a feature of systems and social
institutions that allows the determination of who is responsible. 2) List and describe the five steps in an ethical analysis 1)identify and describe clearly the facts 2) define the conflict or dilemma, and
identify the higher order values involved 3) identify the stakeholders 4) identify the options you can reasonably
take 5) identify the potential consequences of your options Identify and describe six ethical principles. - Golden Rule suggests doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. - Descartes' Rule of
Change, also known as the Slippery Slope Rule, suggests that if
an action cannot be taken repeatedly, then it is not right to be taken at any
time. 3) Define privacy and fair information practices. Privacy is the claim that individuals have the right to be left alone, free from surveillance or interference from other individuals or organizations, including the state. Claims to privacy involve the workplace as well as the home. Information technology threatens individual claims to privacy by making the invasion of privacy cheap, profitable, and effective. fair information practices is a set of principles governing the collection and use of information about individuals. FIP principles are - notice/awareness - access/participation - security. Explain how the Internet challenges the protection of individual privacy and intellectual property Cookies, Web bugs, and other means of collecting information about Internet users can be shared without the Internet user's consent. This allows information that a user may have given voluntarily for a good purpose, say logging into the Globe and Mail's site, to be shared with some other site. Spamming or email that uses a user's email address is another invasion of privacy. Explain how informed consent, legislation, industry self-regulation, and technology tools help protect the individual privacy of Internet users. privacy law helps regulate the
collection, usage, and disclosure of information in Canada. Some industries'
professional organizations, such as accountants, engineers, and information
systems professionals, have adopted codes of ethics to help regulate what their
professionals do. Information systems center around information rights and obligation ,property rights and obligations, accountability and control, system quality and quality of life. List and
define three different regimes that protect intellectual property rights? he three different legal traditions that protect property rights are: -trade secret -copyright - patent. A trade secret is any intellectual work product used for a business purpose that can be classified as belonging to that business, provided it is not based on information in the public domain. The drawback to trade secret protection is that once an idea falls into the public domain, it can no longer be protected as a trade secret. A copyright is a statutory grant that protects creators of intellectual property against copying by others for any purpose for a period of 50 years. 4) Explain why it is so difficult
to hold software services liable for failure or injury It is very difficult, if not impossible, to hold software producers liable for their software products because it is only when software acts as a part of a defective product that strict liability pertains. If the software is strictly a service (not part of a product), these laws do not apply. As part of a product, software is still considered to be like books, which historically are protected from liability claims by the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of expression List and describe the principal
causes of system quality problems? The three principal sources of system quality problems are: - hardware and facility failures, - software bugs and errors - poor data quality. Name and
describe four quality-of-life impacts of computers and information systems. -Job can lost when computers replace workers or task become unnecessary in reengineered business processes. -ability to own and use a computer may be exacerbating socioeconomic disparities between different racial group and social classes. -widespread use of computers increases opportunities for computer crime and computer abuse. -computers can create health problems such as repetitive stress injury Define and describe techno-stress and RSI and explain their relationship to information technology. Technostress is defined as stress induced by computer use; symptoms’include aggravation ,hostility toward humans ,impatience ,and fatigue RSI: is avoidable .the management action reduce RSI injuries include: -designing workstations’ for a neutral wrist position -using ergonomically designed devices such as keyboards and mice -promoting and supporting frequent rest breaks and rotation of employees to different jobs
All of the following statements about patents are true except: A) it is more difficult to obtain a copyright than it is to obtain a patent. B) the four types of inventions protected by patent law are machines, manmade products, compositions of matter, and processing methods. C) computer programs can be patented. D) in order to be patented, an invention must be nonobvious. |