Professional Ethics in IT

Running head: PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN IT
Professional Ethics in IT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN IT
Table of Contents
1. McDonald Frame Work.......................................................................................................2
References............................................................................................................................. 4
2. Discussion Forum...............................................................................................................5
Question 1.......................................................................................................................... 5
Question 2.......................................................................................................................... 6
Question 3.......................................................................................................................... 7
Question 4.......................................................................................................................... 8

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PROFESSIONAL ETHICS IN IT
1. McDonald Frame Work
a) Recognizing the Moral Dimension
John has been working for several months, however recently he had been trapped
on various portions of a program. Organizational manager, without even realizing difficulty of
program has asked John to complete it within few days. To resolve this situation, John
remembered that one of his co workers had provided him with a source listing from the
current works and even from a traditional version of a software package. While studying the
two areas of code, he found that he can directly incorporate into his own code. Thus, he
used sections of codes from both commercial software and co-worker, unethically and by not
mentioning it to anyone.
b) Who are the Interested Parties? What are their relationships?
The interested parties identified in this case study are John, the statistical database
programmer and his organizational manager (Noddings 2013). Since the manager had
asked John to complete the program he has taken, within few days, John was in ethical
dilemma to complete the work with two sections of codes from both commercial software
and co worker’s provided source.
c) What values or principles are involved?
i) ACS code of ethics can define the case study effectively. The first suitable code of
ethics is professionalism. It was needed to maintain work ethics under every circumstance,
however John violated this value in this work. He is not promoting and protecting
professionalism in ICT.
ii) The second value is honesty. John can be termed as unethical as he did not
confess his unethical act to anyone (ACS Code of Ethics. 2019). He is unknowingly
misleading the client regarding product suitability and giving credit to himself, although code
was not written by him entirely.
iii) The third suitable ethical value was professional development. He did not follow
work ethics by copying segments of code from software and other sources. Hence, he did
not continue in upgrading his skills and knowledge and increasing awareness of issues that
affect profession.
d) Course of Actions
Professional discussion with manager would have been the best recommendation or
course of action for John, as he would have been able to make him understand the
complexity of program. The second recommendation would be taking help from colleagues
or co-workers, however not by copying segments of code as he has violated Privacy Act
1988.
e) Benefits and Burdens
The major advantage identified in this case study would be providing accurate
statistical program within deadline given to John by the manager (Peters 2015). Another
advantage is that the client would not get an idea about code being copied from software
and other sources.
The burden would be that John had not followed work ethics and even has violated 3
values of ACS code of ethics, which are professionalism, honesty and professional
development. Another burden is that he was asked to complete the complex within limited
days.
f) Analogous Cases