7101ICT Professional Issues: Case Study Analysis, Learning Outcomes

This assignment presents a comprehensive analysis of a case study involving Sophie Ryder, an IT consultant, and Firestone+Associates, an advertising agency. The analysis delves into legal, professional, employment, social, personal, and intrinsic factors influencing Sophie's decisions and actions. It examines ethical considerations related to data privacy, informed consent, intellectual property, and employment practices. The report prioritizes these factors and justifies the prioritization, leading to a detailed discussion and conclusion. Furthermore, the assignment reflects on the learning outcomes from the course, covering topics such as technology ethics, the role of an ethical technologist, habits of effective technologists, the ACS Code of Professional Conduct, ethical issues of the information age, thinking machines, and the impact of AI on human potential. The student reflects on their understanding and application of these concepts within the context of the case study.

Student Name
Student No.
7101ICT
Trimester n, 201n
Professional Issues Assignment: Part 2

Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
<For the postgrad version of this course, your assignment should be 4,500 words
including the 1,500 word reflection on course(plus or minus 10%) – word count is
calculated as everything from the Introduction to the Conclusion – it doesn’t include
the Table of Contents, or References – delete this advice before submitting>
Due Date: time, dd/mm/yy
Lecturer: David Tuffley
Campus (NA, LG, GC):
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
Contents
1. Introduction 2
2. Analysis 3
2.1. Legal factors.........................................................................................3
2.2. Professional factors...............................................................................3
2.3. Employment and Social factors............................................................3
2.4. Personal factors.....................................................................................3
2.5. Intrinsic factors.....................................................................................4
2.6. Prioritisation..........................................................................................5
2.7. Decision................................................................................................5
3. Discussion 7
4. Conclusions on Analysis 7
5. What I have learned from this course 7
5.1. Technology Ethics................................................................................7
5.2. The Ethical Technologist......................................................................8
5.3. Habits of the Effective Technologist....................................................8
5.4. ACS Code of Professional Conduct......................................................8
5.5. Ethical Issues of the Information Age..................................................8
5.6. Thinking Machines...............................................................................8
5.7. The Common Denominator..................................................................8
5.8. AI and Human Potential.......................................................................9
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
5.9. Final Comments (optional)...................................................................9
<note, use the automatic Table of Contents update when
finished – right click mouse over the ToC, then select
‘Update Field’ then ‘Update entire table’>
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
1. Introduction
In the initial part of the report, the legal, professional,
employment and social, personal and intrinsic factors related to
the case study have been highlighted. Thereafter, the decision of
the researcher in context to specific instances has been
provided. This section also incorporates a priority list of the
factors and the justification of the prioritisation has also been
reflected. Based on these findings, the next section conducts a
detailed discussion followed by an overall conclusion. In the
last part, the learning outcomes on this course have been
evaluated by emphasising on specific questions.
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
2. Analysis
<create a list, based on the case study, assigning events and
facts to the various categories below>
<this section might contain up to a thousand words>
2.1. Legal factors
The first legal factor came into play when Sophie was formally hired and the contract
of engagement was formed including the terms of payment based upon mutual
agreement. In this context, the non-disclosure agreement which Sophie had to sign
can also be mentioned. According to the terms of the agreement she was bound not to
disclose any information regarding the reaper software to any third party without
written authorisation from Firestone. The legal tender of the project was to be three
months and if it needed for the extension it would be based upon mutual agreement.
Another major legal issue regarding the reaper software that Sophie was developing
for Firestone is concern regarding informed consent. This implies that Firestone
needed to comply with three elements of Consent, namely full disclosure of the nature
of participant’s involvement, adequate comprehension on the part of the participants
and their voluntary choice to participate. Firstly, full disclosure did not happen in this
case because the participants did not know that their personal information is used for
being sold to clients so that we can approach them with offers regarding products and
services. Secondly it is not certain if the proportion of benefit from the storage of data
from the end of Firestone is equal to the benefits that the customers is getting by
giving their data into the hands of Firestone. Lastly until the participants are knowing
about the full utility of their personal data, it cannot be commented that they will be
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
willing to provide the data or not. in this case it requires mentioned that the
Information Act of Australia strongly advocates the rights to informed consent.
Thereupon, the way in which Firestone sold details of customers interested in
LGBQT+ products to Moral Guardians of Australia was also illegal. This is because,
although the information clause of the Reaper software makes the audience aware of
the fact that they are going to receive promotional offers based on their profession of
personal data, they are not made aware of the threats that might come their way. The
bashings of gay men in the Brisbane area is a proof that the data has been mis-handled
by an entity. Another important legal issue that can be specified here is that Alex did
not care to mention Sophie that he was already married, although separated before
entering into the relationship with her.
In fact Alex's approach of developing a cloned business and his actions like copying
the computer system of Firestone, taking a copy of the database of clients, customer
list as well as the past records of the past work and materials developed for clients
without the consent of Firestone owner, is itself illegal.
2.2. Professional factors
Professional factors refer to the obligations for business operators towards their
business. In this context, the first name that can be highlighted is that of Sophie. It is
commendable that she had developed the reaper software by her own intellect.
Nevertheless, she had developed it under contract with Firestone owners Richard and
Alex. Hence, professional ethics should have prompted her not to use the same
software when she was developing her own organisation. Another instance of
professional obligation that was supposed to be displayed by her was in the context of
entering into a contract with Alex for developing her own organisation. It was her
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
professional duty to do her work for Firestone and in fact she had also received the
payment that was mutually agreed upon. After that, if she received any certification,
verbal appreciation or any other form of appreciation for her work was to come
voluntarily from the end of the organisation. However, only because she did not
receive any pat on the back she should not have taken the step of breaking the
business trust and conspire with Alex to develop their own business organisation.
However, after joining hands with Alex, Sophie wanted to develop the business from
scratch. Her intention was to remain to her profession. That is why, when she realised
that Alex wants to clone the business of Firestone by appropriating all the intellectual
property of the organisation, she sternly objected. In this case, her motive was to start
the business ethically and from the scratch. She wanted to remind to her profession
and understood that it would not be justified to progress in their work by
appropriating all business data from Firestone under influence from her employer and
business partner, Alex.
2.3. Employment and Social factors
Organisations existing in larger context to societies are actually a product of the
society. Nevertheless this implies that there should be some in principle linkage
between the society and the organisation delivered in the form of any social contract.
The initial issue in this context is that although not constitutionalised, Richard should
have provided a pat on the back to Sophie, for the significant profit made by
Firestone, because of the software developed by her. The large database of
consumer’s data that Firestone was able to acquire would not have been possible
without her. This is one social factor of employment that Richard did not take into
account. In case if this is considered to be an employment issue, then the aspiration of
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
Alex to develop his own agency by cloning the business of Firestone is also unethical
from the perspective of the social factors. In this context, it can be argued that it could
be his personal decision to break free from Firestone to open his own agency, but his
employment rights did not empower him to make copies of the files in the computer
system of Firestone, make a copy of the functional version of reaper, the list of clients
of Firestone as well as the personal database of consumers data that has been
developed by Firestone with the help of the Reaper software.
To Speak of the social issues, the reputation of unemployed depends on how well he
or she has performed in achieving the business objectives of the organisation he or she
has been working with. In this context, the computer industry grapevine has
communicated the word that Sophie has conspired while working with Firestone. As a
natural outcome she was having difficulty to find work, not only the Brisbane area but
also far away in Perth. This is why, she had to land to a junior position compared to
her former level, only in order to meet her regular expenses.
Another major employment and social factor is concerning the new agency of Alex. It
is a social duty of organisations to provide employment to deserving candidates.
However, he intentionally employed the interns so that we could make them work for
free. This is a big social issue. The reason behind this is that when organisations are
employing interns, they have a certain plan of progression for the candidates which
will help them in their future life. In this case, he wanted to employ the interns only to
make them work for free. While, there was an expectation from the end of the intern
candidates that the work they are delivering here will help them to get started in their
professional life, the employer was only exploiting their efforts for the progress of his
organisation. Organisations generally look up to the work of the interns as a
supportive role. Generally, interns do not share the liability of the impact of their
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
work on the business since they are only concerned with gathering experience of real-
time working.
In this context, when the interns realised that they were performing the mainstream
functions for the organisation they started to make demands for paid work on a
regular basis. it is evident in the case study that Alex used to ignore the regular emails
of the intern that he received.
2.4. Personal factors
The moral development of a person is the outcome. The social conditioning has a
great role to play in determination of the personal factors. In this case ball of the
personal factors is the attitude of Richard towards employees. In the opinion of Alex,
he believes that the managers for owners should not give too much appraisal to
employees which give birth to an inflated ego in them. However, the consequence that
happened with Richard prove that it is sometimes necessary to appreciate the work of
employees, particularly when the company has been greatly benefited from the
software Reaper developed by Sophie.
Social functioning of Sophie influenced from the negative Vibes she is from the
attitude of Richard and the alluring offer relationship from Alex moulded her personal
environment. As an outcome, she agreed to set up new agency with Alex.
In this case, the personal motivation of Alex was not to develop a new organisation in
the form of a start up. Rather, his aim was to clone the business of Firestone by
appropriating their intellectual and confidential properties and even reinstating their
client base also. However the irreconcilable differences between the personal
motivations of Sophie and Alex also deserves mention. The personal environment of
Sophie motivated her to enter into the business relationship with Alex so that she
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
could develop her own start-up business with innovative ideas. She was never
interested in successfully supplementing the successful business model of Firestone.
In context of the ideology of Alex regarding finding success with his new agency, he
is interested in making the business run by any means. For that purpose, it was
personally correct for him to sneak out the business data and other outstanding
intellectual information from the database of Firestone in order to supplement his own
business or make the fresh graduate interns work wonderful time employment scheme
without providing payment for more than one year. This is because his personal
motivation was to make his business run under any cost.
2.5. Intrinsic factors
The intrinsic motivation refers to factors that where present in the personality
individual before they were influenced by their surrounding environment. Assessment
of the intrinsic factors in context to the case study 2 has to be conducted from the
perspective of the two main responsible characters, Alex and Sophie. Sophie was
ambitious morally developed with the personal goal of achieving a Bright Career for
her. That is why, even after accepting the appropriate payment from Firestone, she
expected some certification for that on the back because of the great success that
Firestone had achieved out of the software that she had developed for the company.
Nevertheless, it is motivation of getting establishment in her career that drives him to
fall into the idea of Alex for developing their own agency.
On the contrary, the most important attributes of the character of Alex was that he
wanted to unlimited success in business. The business model of leadership that was
exercised by Richard was not liked by him nor did he like to work under Richard for
long. However, we cannot call him and entrepreneurs because his main Idea was to
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Professional Issues Assignment What I have learned from this course
imitate the business model of Firestone to develop his own agency. This was his
intrinsic motivation, led by which he was working for Firestone. In fact, is intrinsic
motivation behind entering into the romantic relationship with Sophie was to retain a
valuable resource for his own agency. He had plans to develop smarter software than
Reaper, which was later found to be actualized by him with the help of the intern
employees.
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