Ethical Analysis of Early Software Launch: An ITC506 Case Study Report

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ITC506
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ETHICS: ASSESSMENT
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Case outline.....................................................................................................................................3
Ethical Issues...................................................................................................................................4
Australian computer science code of professional ethics................................................................4
Recommendations............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6
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Introduction
ACS code of professional ethics has to be followed by every information technology and
communication organization. Australian computer science code of ethics is part of ACS
constitution. ACS member must uphold and advance the effectiveness, dignity, and honor of
being professional. Six core values of ethics and professional conduct associated requirements
are identified by this code of conduct. ITC organizations are abiding by these ethical values and
have to act with the integrity in all the dealings of professionalism. The relevance of this code of
professional conduct is to the legislation of professional standards. The professional negligence
can be claimed in case of the failure by any ITC organizations which abide to follow these
code’s ethics and disciplinary actions can be taken by the ACS if the failure is observed. In this
report, the identification is made of the ethical issues by looking at the case study’s videos. The
ethical issues are analyzed from the ACS perspectives. Later recommendations are provided for
the same.
Case outline
In the given case study, there is an ITC organization which has received a contract from client
Willi which is one of the main clients of an organization. CEO of the company is keen to deliver
this project a month early. For the same purpose the CEO is pressurizing the project manager of
the company to get the project completed on time and deliver it within a deadline that is even a
month early so that the company can also get the next contract from Willis, otherwise, it may
lose the contract from him. The senior software developer of the company has been given the
responsibility of developing the software (YouTube, 2016). The company’s project manager
consulted the senior software developer where the senior developer told him about the challenges
he was facing to complete the project within the deadline as three designing of software was
being developed by him and the accurate testing was also required to be made so as to avoid any
type of discrepancies in the near future because if the testing would not be done in a proper way
then it might result in hacking. The senior developer of software was asked by the project
manager to make the optimum utilization of the available resources in developing one design
only. He was further asked to launch the project without any testing and encryption and that the
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encryption could be performed after a week but at present, the company wants to make the early
delivery of the project (Al-Saggaf.et.al, 2015)
Ethical Issues
In this case of ITC organization, keeping aside all the ethical values of the professional conduct,
the project manager asked the senior developer to develop the software design for the client
Willis and to deliver it within deadline i.e. a month early without any encryption and testing
which are the essential part of the software designing and analyzing process. ITC organization
must comply with the professional conducts and ethical values of ACS and must upload the
dignity and honor of professionalism but here in the given case, the company has breached the
codes of ACS in lieu of meeting the deadline. The company has to work diligently for its clients
and has to maintain the public trust and the trust of its clients (MARTIN, 2015).
Australian computer science code of professional ethics
The following ACS values are included in ACS professional ethics-
 Competence
 The enhancement of quality of life
 Professionalism
 Honesty
 Professional development
 Primacy of public interest (Australian Computer Society, 2019)
The ACS code of professional ethics has been breached by the project manager of the company
in the given case. It is the ethical value to give preference to the public interest over personal and
private interests. The project manager with the purpose of grabbing the next contract of client
Willis pressurized the senior software developer to launch the project early without encryption
and testing and deliver it within the deadlines. He even ignored the dangerous consequences of
hacking which could be very harmful to the client and will affect the goodwill of the
organization.
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The company breaches the ethical value of honesty also. The company has to be honest
regarding the representation of skills, products, and services and should not breach the trust of
the stakeholders. All the professional actions and decisions must underlie with the utmost
integrity and honesty. The project manager misleads the client by making early launch without
testing ignoring the quality work and his focus was on the company's profit only. The company
should accept the only contract if it believes that it is competent enough to perform and should
not hesitate in obtaining the additional expertise where required.
Recommendations
All the elements and the ethical values of Australian computer science must be followed by the
ITC organization. The company could have decided to engage more human force and the
financial resources for the timely completion of the project and that not even at the cost of
quality but with the proper testing and encryption so that the project proves successful. The
company could have offered the team of this project with the attractive schemes of incentives
and the bonus if the project completed within the deadline. This decision could have proved
beneficial for the ITC organization and no fear of hacking would have been there. The company
could have hired the additional professional expertise for this which would have helped the
company in quality launching of software within the deadline (Hilty, & Aebischer, 2015).
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded from the whole case study that every ITC organization is abiding by
the professional conducts and ethical values of ACS and has to follow it rigorously. Failure to
follow the same may result in the disciplinary action by the ACS. In this report, the early launch
of the software case has been analyzed. The ethical issues have been identified, for which
recommendations have also been made considering the ACS code of ethics that the company
could have opted for the better results.
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References
 Australian Computer Society.,(2019). Acs code of professional conduct case studies.
[Online]. ACS. org. Available at: https://www.acs.org.au/content/dam/acs/rules-and-
regulations/code-of-professional-conduct_v2.1.pdf. [Accessed on 23 march 2019]
 Martin, K. E. (2015). Ethical issues in the big data industry. MIS quarterly executive, 14,
2.
 Al-Saggaf, Y., Burmeister, O., & Weckert, J. (2015). Reasons behind unethical behavior
in the Australian ICT workplace: an empirical investigation. JOURNAL OF
INFORMATION, COMMUNICATION, AND ETHICS IN SOCIETY, 13(3/4), 235-255.
 Hilty, l. M., & Aebischer, b. (2015). ICT for sustainability: an emerging research field.
in ICT innovations for sustainability(pp. 3-36). Springer, Cham.
 YouTube., (2016). Early launch. [Online]. YouTube. available at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5M7ohdZ6qA. [Accessed on 23 March 2019]
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