Making a Code of Computer Ethics Work at Pimli College - Sections 2 through 2.2 - The Research Center on Computing & Society

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Sally Webster

2. The Players and the Plays

2.1. Top Administrative Officers

To be really effective, a Code of Computer Ethics must be supported right from the top – the Board of Trustees and the Chancellor or President of the college. As long as the people with the most responsibility shirk it, administrators and faculty can tell themselves that it’s not a high priority of the college.

The Chancellor or President, as an agent of the Board of Trustees, can announce support for the Code and mention it from time to time to all his audiences, including the college and town news organizations. EDUCOM wrote a code covering intellectual property rights which many college and university computing organizations have endorsed and publicized. But at many of these institutions the highest officer has neglected to embrace it, and so it is not official institutional policy but remains a stepchild.

The next administrative rank (vice-presidents, provosts, vice-provosts, and directors) must support the Code at their level and below by passing down to the next level both the letter and the spirit of the Code. Meetings of the faculty, or deans, or directors and college unit retreats are venues for discussions of the ideas behind such a Code, its provisions, and

sanctions. Internal school, department, or division newsletters are good vehicles for discussion and explanation.

The academic officers of the college can widely disseminate in student publications and handbooks the Code, the ideas behind it and the consequences of ignoring its provisions. Further, these officers can decide how vigorously to enforce provisions of the Code and how judicial and policy review boards shall handle individual infractions.

The institution, through actions and decisions of its academic and administrative officers should prepare to spend the money necessary to buy legal copies of all software which is sponsored in central or departmental clusters and labs by the institution. The perhaps unintended message given by having illegal software in a college cluster or lab is easy to understand and hard to overcome.

2.2. Top Academic Officers

The various officers of faculty governance and academic responsibility, such as deans, department chairs, and faculty senate officers and appropriate committee chairs, must reinforce the support for the Code coming from above. The message that ethics, particularly in this instance computer ethics, counts cannot be heard too often.

Deans and department chairs must find creative ways to get legal copies of software to their faculty and students, especially if they are encouraging the faculty to “computerize” the curriculum. Even usually ethical faculty members will be tempted to use unauthorized copies of software if they are pressed to include computing in their courses while denied the departmental funds to buy enough copies; ethically lax faculty members use the economic argument to rationalize their habitual behavior. Strong messages about computer ethics, coupled with vigorous efforts to support ethical behavior, will have a salutary effect.

It’s ironic that faculty members who understand very clearly the effects of having their own work stolen or used without citation will often steal software with impunity. Top academic officers need to point out, often, the inconsistency in these behaviors.

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