Computer Ethics on Campus

Leslie Burkholder

• 1. Why a Code?
• 2. Code Content
• 3. A Code and More
• References

2. Code Content

OK, the committee says, we should have a code of computer usage. Maybe it will do some good. Certainly it can do no harm. But what should be in it? What topics? And what should be said about those topics?

Reasonably, the members of the committee start by looking at codes from other schools. They do a literature search, of sorts. In all, they look at 38 codes. They have some help. Many codes have been collected together and are now made available by an EDUCOM committee (EDUCOM Review, Winter 1990, p 63). The codes are from universities and colleges of all shapes and sizes, most from the US but even a few from abroad. Of course they find great differences among the codes. Some are very brief and not detailed. Others are lengthy and specific. And they find substantial variation in content. (See Figure 1.)

Most codes, but not all, say that disciplinary action will result from a violation. Disciplinary action varies with the severity of the computer misuse. Sometimes it includes dismissal from the university. Often possible criminal prosecution, where code violations also break the law, is mentioned as well. Most encourage respect for the privacy and property rights of other users of the campus system. They also have something to say about what those rights are. The right to privacy, at least in this context, is typically thought of as the right not to have your files or communications examined by others without consent. Property rights include rights that others not take or alter your files, for example your program or data files, without your consent. Sometimes it is pointed out that lack of certain kinds of read – or write – or copy-protection on files does not mean a user has consented to others reading, changing, or taking the files, any more than an open door signifies consent to enter an office or borrow or fiddle with any of its contents. Many codes also explicitly say something about respect for software licensing agreements and copyrights. Often they quote big chunks of the EDUCOM resolution on intellectual property rights. Some, along with the encouragement of respect for the property rights of other users and software vendors, inveigh against computer-assisted plagiarism.

About 2/3 of the codes the committee looks at say something about using campus computing facilities in a way that acknowledges other users’ needs for perhaps scarce, certainly finite, facility resources. Some, for example, talk about playing games on student cluster microcomputers, workstations, or terminals that are provided for doing homework assignments. Most talk about not misusing printing services to make unnecessary copies or misusing disk or other storage to save useless files. The codes often also discourage harassing or annoying these other users by, for example, sending them electronic mail of a kind they find objectionable or pestering them in clusters.

Most codes also have something to say, in various ways, about authorized or permitted use of school computers. In general, of course, they insist that only members of the campus community or authorized others are permitted to use its computing facilities, just like the gymnasium or library. Students who have dropped courses which gave them accounts, for example, may no longer be authorized to use the computing system or particular parts of it. Sometimes certain machines can only be used for certain purposes or by certain groups. They may be machines purchased on a grant for a research project, and so not for general use. More often than not, it is said that university or college computing facilities cannot be used for commercial purposes, and can be used for outside work, consulting and research, for example, only with special permission. Many codes prohibit unauthorized alteration of school-owned software and hardware. Many forbid activities that would degrade system performance or get around accounting provisions, but some also explicitly forbid unauthorized modifications that might be believed by hacker modifiers to improve system performance or abilities (Levy, 1984).

The committee also finds that some codes talk about underlying commonsense moral principles that guide the code’s specific provisions. Often, it is remarked that the ethical rules about privacy and property and fair usage of common resources that apply elsewhere also apply to computers and their considerate use. Along with this it is suggested that the code’s specific rules do not cover every conceivable circumstance, only some of the more obvious and typical ones. Thus, reference to these more general principles is needed for unmentioned circumstances. Sometimes, however, instead of referring to everyday ethical principles, the ethics codes refer to or quote from provisions of the local, usually state, criminal law to provide content.

What does the committee find is said about these various topics? Again, great variation. All codes that mention the topic, for example, agree that users shouldn’t harass others. All that mention the topic agree that copyrights and site licenses should be honored. But some codes assert things others deny. For example, some schools assert that they own all electronic files, not users. Others believe that users own files they create, much as students and faculty presumably own papers they author. Some forbid absolutely recreational game-playing on their machines. Others allow it when, by some settled indicator, usage of the system by people doing research or homework is low. Some absolutely forbid users, or at least student users, to lend their accounts or user “IDs” to others, even if those others are associated with the university or college. Other codes are more lenient, only holding the account owners responsible for any consequences of a loan.

Why, the committee members wonder, is there such variation in content of codes, both in topic and what is said about a topic? And does this bear on what our college’s computer ethics code should look like?

Some variation is easily explained. Perhaps some don’t mention discipline for rule-breaking because the subject is dealt with elsewhere in a handbook from which the code is excerpted. Codes which do not explicitly discuss computer-assisted plagiarism may take it for granted that plagiarism of all kinds is sufficiently discouraged by a general prohibition stated somewhere else in student, staff, and faculty handbooks. If X is wrong, so is X-done-with-a-computer. Some differences are easily explained by differences in the nature and extent of computing facilities available. Some college’s codes may not mention skirting around accounting procedures because they have none. Everyone uses a stand-alone microcomputer and there are no computing accounts. Some have a richer environment, with many machines, and thus are not so hard-nosed about recreational game-playing. The Pimli College committee has, therefore, to find out things like what is said in other of its own college codes of conduct, to find out what the particular arrangement of its facilities is, to decide how lenient it can afford to be about non-schoolwork uses of its machines, and so on, to write its code.

But, asks a philosopher on the committee, what about the difference over who really owns user’s files, what their privacy rights are, and such matters as whether they can loan out their accounts or user “IDs” or give their passwords to others? There is, he thinks, a fundamental problem about ethics codes (cf. Ladd, 1980; DeGeorge, 1990, p.389 – 390), and it shows up in these differences among the codes.

These codes, he says, might be supposed to be statements of right and wrong, statements of already existing moral or ethical truth, concerning the proper use of computers on campus. It looks like some code-writers think of them this way. But then certain things follow. For example, it is not up to the committee to decide to make certain activities right or wrong, any more than it is up to Congress to decide that kidnapping is wrong. The committee couldn’t, for instance, adopt a rule that said that harassing or annoying other users is okay or that reading their e-mail without consent is fine, if the claim of the code is to record what is right and wrong. Those rules would just be incorrect.

Maybe, on the other hand, he says, these codes are pieces of legislation or rules like those for the college’s parking lots. While there are certainly limits, the committee can then pretty much say what it wants in the code. There are no moral truths about who can use which parking lots on campus. There’s nothing in ethics about allowing or not allowing users to loan out their user “IDs”. The committee just says that this is the way things are set up at Pimli. It’s like a landlord-tenant agreement. Pimli is the landlord and the users are the tenants. Maybe the committee will have reasons for having certain rules in our code, just like landlords do. Some of them might even have some close connection to ethics, like the rule prohibiting harassment. But some of them might have only more mundane reasons, like the rules about who can use which parking spaces. Maybe, for example, there are reasons – reasons of efficiency or convenience – which lead to restrictive rules about the loan of accounts and user “IDs”, or maybe there aren’t.

Anyway, he says, the committee has to decide which of these two kinds of animal the code is supposed to be. That determines some of what can be said in the code.

Go to: 3. A Code and More

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