Making a Code of Computer Ethics Work at Pimli College

Sally Webster

• 1. Life at Pimli After the Code is Adopted
• 2. The Players and the Plays
• 2.1 Top Administrative Officers
• 2.2 Top Academic Officers
• 2.3 Faculty Members
• 2.4 Computing Staffs
• 2.5 Student Government and Leadership Groups
• 2.6 Judicial Bodies
• 2.7 Legal and Purchasing Departments
• 3. Thoughts at the End

2.5. Student Government and Leadership Groups

Student governmental bodies and Greek Society leadership must be part of the support of the Code, or else students will see it as yet another set of onerous rules imposed on them by faculty and administrators. These groups can lobby to be included on decision-making bodies; they can foster discussion of the Code in their publications and at their meetings.

Pimli College apparently did not have any undergraduate or graduate student representation on its Computing Advisory Committee, and that is a mistake, I think, for the reason cited above.

2.6. Judicial Bodies

Student and faculty judicial bodies and personnel units responsible for explaining and enforcing college policies should support the Code, lest the college mirror society at large wherein the police vigorously arrest offenders but believe the judges let them off too lightly.

Judicial and policy review boards must be helped to understand the seriousness of breaches of computer ethics policies. Too often, because they lack experience in this specific area, they do not make the connections between ethical dilemmas induced by computer use and those with a longer human history. The members of these boards should call on computer center staff members for explanations of how computers and computer networks can be abused and on law school professors and philosophers for discussions of privacy, intellectual property, harassment, and contract law.

Judicial bodies must be helped to act strongly and consistently when deliberating on computer abuse cases. They need to be backed up by top administrative officers and by the college’s legal department.

2.7 Legal and Purchasing Departments

Purchasing and legal departments are important players in this exercise. Often Purchasing staff notice that a person or an office is ordering hardware without enough software to assure enough legal copies. Purchasing staffs can remind the person ordering that software (legal, inthis case) makes hardware work.

The college, through its purchasing, legal, and computing organizations, should work with vendors to forge the kinds of partnerships and make the kinds of deals which encourage the institution and its faculty, staff, and students to buy software, rather than steal it. The fact that a particular vendor charges a “high” price for software does not excuse theft; however, if both vendors and institutional representatives are seen to be trying to do their part, faculty, staff, and students can be more easily pressed to do theirs.

3. Thoughts at The End

Pimli College isn’t much different from the college or university each of us is familiar with. In each Pimli, some people care deeply about the ethical climate, about the role of faculty and staff behavior in the lives of our students, about the obligation we have to encourage ourselves and our students to reflect on the ways in which we treat each other. In each Pimli, lack of reflection about ethical issues, ethical relativism, cynicism, and the press of time prevent the people who care from working effectively at the right levels to make a change.

As good as it is to have a Code of Computer Ethics, it will be only as good as the people who support and defend it. Many of today’s students want to do the right thing, want to know what “the right thing” is. But thinking about the right thing is hard and uncomfortable work, and we staff and faculty who will inevitably influence some students are obliged, I believe, to think aloud about the uncomfortable ethical issues, to struggle in public with the dilemmas, and to help our students think and struggle so they become thoughtful and ethical members of society.

SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry