Don Gotterbarn

Using the new ACM code of ethics in decision making

the public that they deserve to be Judith Perrolle are deserving of its confidence and self-regulating. Self-regulation deembodiment of a set of commitments respect, and of increased social and pends on ways to deter unethical of that association’s members. Someeconomic rewards” [S]. behavior of the members, and a times these commitments are exThe final and most important code, combined with an ethics review pressed as rules and sometimes as function of a code of ethics is its role board, was seen as the solution. ideals, but the essential social funcas an aid to individual decision makCodes of ethics have tended to list tion is to clarify and formally state ing. In the interest of facilitating betpossible violations and threaten sancthose ethical requirements that are ter ethical decision making, we have tions for such violations. ACM’s first important to the group as a profesdeveloped a set of nine classes that code, the Code of Professional Consional association. The new ACM describe situations calling for ethical duct, was adopted in 1972 and folCode of Ethics and Professional Condecision making. These cases address lowed this model. The latest ACM duct follows this philosophy. in turn the topics of intellectual code, the Code of Ethics and ProfesRecent codes of ethics emphasize property, privacy, confidentiality, sional Conduct, was adopted in 1992 socialization or education rather than professional quality, fairness or disand takes a new direction. enforced compliance. A code can crimination, liability, software risks, ACM and many other societies work toward the collective good even conflicts of interest, and unauthorhave had difficulties implementing though it may be a mere distillation ized access to computer systems. an ethics review system and came to of collective experience and reflecWithin each case we begin with a realize that self-regulation depends tion. A major benefit of an educascenario to illustrate a typical ethical mostly on the consensus and committionally oriented code is its contribudecision point and then lay out the ment of its members to ethical behavtion to the group by clarifying the different imperatives (principles) of ior. Now the most important rationprofessionals’ responsibility to socithe new Code of Ethics that pertain ale for a code of ethics is an ety. to that decision. There are 24 princi-

Software engineering code of ethics

T he Board of Governors of the IEEE Computer Society established a steering committee in May 1993 for evaluating, planning, and coordinating actions related to establishing software engineering as a profession. In that same year the ACM Council endorsed the establishment of a Commission on Software Engineering. By January 1994, both societies formed a joint steering committee “to establish the appropriate set(s) of standards for professional practice of software engineering upon which industrial decisions, professional certification, and educational curricula can be based.” To accomplish these tasks they made the following recommendations: ACM and the IEEE Computer Society join forces to create a code of professional practices within our industry. Now, we ask for your comments.

Software engineering code of ethics is approved

between these two versions. The original eight Principles were reordered to reflect the order in which software professionals should consider their ethical obligations—version 3.0’s first Principle was the Product while version 5.2’s first Principle is the Public. A shortened version of the Code was added to the front of the full version of the Code to facilitate a quick review of the Principles of the Code (see box). However, this shortened version must not be viewed as a standalone abbreviated code since this would detract from the detailed breadth and depth of the full version. The details are necessary to provide clear guidance for the practical application of these ethical principals. The Preamble to the Code was significantly revised. It includes specific ethical standards to help the professional make ethical decisions. The Code emphasizes the professional’s obligations to the public at large. This obligation is the final arbiter in all decisions. “In all these judgements, concern for the health, safety, and welfare of the public is primary; that is, the ‘Public Interest’ is central to this Code.” The primacy of well being and quality of life of the public, in all decisions related to software engineering, is emphasized throughout the Code. For example, the whistle-blowing clauses (6.11–6.13) describe obligations for protecting the public when their well being is threatened by defective software development and describe steps to meet those obligations. The Code contains a clause (8.07) against using prejudices or bias in any decision making. The intent of this clause is to be open ended, thus enabling it to include consideration of new social concerns. The exhaustive efforts of the ACM and IEEE–CS has resulted in the adoption of a code of professional practices for software engineers to consider—and use. Don Gotterbarn, Keith Miller, and Simon Rogerson

How the new Software Engineering Code of Ethics affects you

The Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice has recently been approved. This article looks at the immediate and long-term implications: Why does a profession need a code of ethics? How will this code function in an emerging profession like software engineering? What impact will it have on software practitioners?.

Real-World Software Engineering: A Spiral Approach to a Project-Oriented Course

A one-semester course cannot adequately cover the software development process and still provide meaningful project experience. We have developed and implemented a tightly- coupled two-semester undergraduate course which presents, in a spiral form, theory and practice, product and process. Coordinating the increase in depth of the lectures as topics are revisited repeatedly, with increasingly demanding projects, constitutes our spiral approach. Three projects differ in size, complexity, team structure, artifacts provided and delivered, and development methodologies. The projects are carefully choreographed to provide varied team experiences and allow each student to function in a variety of roles and responsibilities. The project framework provides a series of passes through the software development process, each pass adding to a body of common student experiences to which subsequent passes can refer. By the middle of the first semester students, individually and in teams, have begun accumulating their own “war stories”; some positive, some negative. This personalized knowledge provides a solid base for more advanced concepts and classroom discussion.

The Public is the Priority: Making Decisions Using the Software Engineering Code of Ethics

The software engineering code of ethics and professional practice encourages software engineers to undertake positive actions and to resist pressures to act unethically.

Using information technology to integrate social and ethical issues into the computer science and information systems curriculum: report of the ITiCSE '97 working group on social and ethical issues in computing curricula

This report presents the results of a collaborative working group activity focusing on the use of information technology (IT) to integrate social and ethical issues within computer science or information systems courses. The report provides an organizational approach for classifying exercises, based on the issue each one addresses and the course or courses in which it may fit. The exercises in this report are classified by the information technology to be used and the course or courses addressed by the exercise. Ten sample exercises are provided, each given in a recommended standardized format.

Plagiarism and Scholarly Publications: An Ethical Analysis

All professional organizations that have a publication component should have a strongly articulated position against plagiarism. Such a position has a solid foundation in common understandings of ethical principles including the encouragement of honesty and the discouragement of stealing. Having a strong, ethical position against plagiarism is different from the implementation of a strong, enforceable policy against plagiarism. This paper examines some practical challenges to enforcement policies, including legal liability. These challenges may complicate the development of a broad, enforceable policy against plagiarism that includes sanctions against authors found to be plagiarists. Additionally, such sanctions are needed to deter authors from submitting plagiarized works. One important aspect of discouraging plagiarism is a better use of computer applications that detect copying. Authors can use these applications to avoid unintentional plagiarism; reviewers and publishers can use these applications to keep plagiarized articles from being published

Privacy lost: The Net, autonomous agents, and’virtual information‘

The positive qualities of the Internet--anonymity, openness, and reproducibility have added a new ethical dimension to the privacy debate. This paper describes a new and significant way in which privacy is violated. A type of personal information, called ‘virtual information’ is described and the effectiveness of techniques to protect this type of information is examined. This examination includes a discussion of technical approaches and professional standards as ways to address this violation of ‘virtual information.’

UML and agile methods: in support of irresponsible development

The principles of good software development are improving. We have better answers today about how to develop more effective software then we did yesterday. We may not have complete answers about how to produce quality software but we are getting closer. Two significant advances in the past few years are the Unified Modeling Language (UML), both the notation and its associated process(RUP) and the agile software development model in all of its variations including: Adaptive Software Development (ASD), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM), Feature Driven Development (FDD), Scrum, and eXtreme Programming (XP).