The professionalism of IT staff has been called into question by
the UK's first professor of computer ethics, who says employers
should build ethics into their IT training, writes John
Kavanagh.
In a report out this week, entitled Social Responsibility in the
Information Age, De Montfort University's Simon Rogerson says
today's IT staff fall well short of expectations of professionalism
compared to those in traditional professions such as a medicine and
law.
"The power of information and communications technologies has
increased massively, yet the sense of responsibility of the
professionals working most closely with those technologies has
stagnated," Rogerson says. "Classic professions have
closed-membership, professional bodies that can sanction members.
IT jobs don't have professional bodies with meaningful powers of
sanction.
"Professionalism implies a commitment to the interests of all
end-users and other stakeholders. It requires much more than
delivering on time within budget - to do so could mean delivering a
dangerous or malfunctioning system."
Co-author of the report, Ben Fairweather, research fellow at the
university's Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, calls
for individuals to take responsibility for their actions at work as
they would at home.
"Actions are often carried out that would be seen as clearly
immoral if done away from the professional arena," he says. "At the
most extreme, deaths are caused, or not prevented. Individuals must
take responsibility for their actions."
Rogerson says IT professionals have a moral responsibility to
look beyond their self-interest to how their actions affect others.
They should set high standards for new recruits to follow and lead
by example, share new ideas or best practice with others, and give
leadership and guidance to end-users.
Codes of conduct mandated by the British Computer Society and
other professional bodies set out such obligations, but although
these bodies can discipline members they cannot stop them working,
unlike those in traditional professions.
Rogerson's report calls on employers to build IT ethics into
their training programmes and to consider appointing an internal
senior champion for ethical issues.
"Ethical awareness should be part of the job specification for
IT jobs," Rogerson says. "This could be tested at interview. If you
cannot recruit ethically-sensitive staff, you should run ethics
education sessions. These should not be just a one-off session at
induction, but an approach that encourages continuous staff
development and discussion of ethical issues."
The report also suggests that the IT industry should consider
appointing an ethics adviser or committee to guide IT
professionals.
Rogerson concludes, "IT professionals are the custodians of the
greatest change technology that has ever been created. They have a
huge amount of power in modern society, but with that comes a huge
responsibility and obligation to do things which are acceptable,
and which promote the well-being of all of us. That really is a
challenge that IT professionals should take up and address."