Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
3.5.1
Ethics in Computer Science Education
Ethics is part of the discipline of philosophy. The New Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary defines ethics as “the science (or set) of moral principles; the branch
of knowledge that deals with the principles of human duty or the logic of moral
discourse.” The Webster's Collegiate Dictionary adds that ethics is “the discipline
dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.”
Some communities of practice have a well-defined code of ethics (e.g., The Code
of Medical Ethics). The role of such codes of ethics is to guide professionals how to
behave in vague situations where it is not clear what is right and what is wrong. The
need for a code of ethics arises from the fact that any profession generates situations
that can neither be predicted nor answered uniformly by all members of the relevant
professional community. In practice, ethics is most often needed when a conflict
arises, between two (or more) possible legal actions. Since all of the alternatives are
legal, ethics may help solve conflict of interests, at least in part.
A relevant question to be asked at this stage is: Does the community of computer
science educators need a code of ethics? If yes, what situations should be addressed
by such a code of ethics? What should be its principles? Clearly, it is not our inten-
tion in this lesson of the MTCS course to formulate a code of ethics for the com-
munity of computer science educators. However, since there are cases in which the
ethical dilemmas faced by computer science educators are similar to those faced by
computer scientists, and since, in addition, there are situations unique to computer
science teachers, the ethics of computer science educators may be derived both
from educational ethical norms and the ethical norms of the community of com-
puter scientists. In other words, in practice, computer science educators should base
their ethical norms on one of the many available educational codes of ethics and
on the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice,
10
formulated
by an IEEE-CS/ACM Joint Task Force, which outlines how software developers
should adhere to ethical behavior.
This perspective highlights the ethical complexity that computer science educa-
tors must deal with as well as the importance of dealing with the concept of ethics
within the framework of computer science teacher preparation.
Activity 6 aims at increasing the students' attention to situations that their pro-
fession—that is, computer science teaching—might bring them face with, and at
delivering the message that their behavior should be based on ethical norms.
Activity 6: Analysis of Ethical Dilemmas
• Stage A: Case analysis, group work
The following two cases are presented to the students. They present a hypo-
thetical situation that raises an ethical dilemma: the first relates directly to
a school situation; the second—indirectly. Each group discusses whether
or not there is an ethical dilemma in the described situation, and, if so, the
students are asked to identify and describe it.
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