IFSM 304 Ethics in the Information Age (3) Recommended: IFSM 201. An introduction to information systems as used to provide information for decision making in a democratic society. Discussion covers the philosophy, techniques, and ethical considerations involved in evaluating information systems.

The word "ethics" has its root word "ethos," which most often refers to "character."  The concepts of ethics, character, right and wrong, and good and evil have captivated humankind since we began to live in groups, communicate, and pass judgment on each others' actions based on motivation, group rules and norms, and intermediate and end results.  Thinking about ethics can begin with the individual and then expand into group societal and cultural ethical considerations.  From this foundation, we can apply (and test against) known theories and frameworks to information systems and situations in the modern age.  Can ethics and personal character apply, and in the same ways, in the modern information and data-based world in which we currently live, work, and function?  Discovering this application, and determining the degree to which it satisfies logic, justice, ethical truths, and modern reality, is the overarching goal of this course.

While ethics is important for its own sake, we, information-systems professionals, have a particular responsibility to understand and apply ethics to our professional actions and decisions.  Character, goodness, and just actions are certainly important for everyone, as they have been throughout history-- and the more power the individual possessed due to political position or wealth, the greater the ramifications of character or the lack of it.  However, at no previous age has the technology for information retrieval, storage, and communication possessed such potential to change power structures and to be the source of power itself.  In the modern era, information-systems managers and professionals exercise a new kind of power, with broad and often instant ramifications.  This power--gained through technical expertise--requires a new level of social responsibility.  This responsibility is satisfied through a development of understanding of ethics in the Information Age and the application of ethics to their own decision-making process.

After reviewing a foundation of ethical thought and becoming familiar with ethical theories, frameworks, and approaches, you will be able to consider several key aspects of modern information systems that currently challenge information professionals and citizens of networked and computing-dependent societies.  These are divided into tow main categories of privacy and accuracy, and property and accessibility.  Privacy and accuracy tend to be thought of in terms of the individual and can be easily associated with ideas of basic human rights, particularly in Western society.  Property and accessibility may be individually conceived as well as organizationally conceived, and the challenges of, tradeoffs between, and laws guiding group needs and individual needs must be considered.  After gaining a basic understanding of ethics, you will examine privacy/accuracy and property/accessibility, seeing a broader and more complex array of modern ethical questions in information systems and direct challenges facing information-systems professionals today.  The final module looks to the future, and challenges you to consider how things may change and what ethical behavior will appear in information systems as the twenty-first century unfolds.

Robert Kaplan, a political scientist who often attempts to describe the future, opened a recent talk by pointing out that at the end of the nineteenth century, the words "totalitarianism" and "genocide" did not exist.  Yet, within 40 years, these words and the actions they describe had changed the world.  The language and facts of information systems and computing have also changed the world and probabaly touched and changed many more lives than did World War II.  This industry has spawned, and continues to spawn, new concepts and new language, and it does so with extreme rapidity.  On the other hand, ethics, which was often a study of the ancients, examines unchanging truths.

With many obvious differences in the concepts and practicalities, a shared aspect of both computing and ethics is universality.  The time-tested and largely globally shared concepts of basic ethics mirror in many ways the universal language of programming and operating systems.  The fun begins as we apply time-tested ethical frameworks to determine correct actions and decisions in this information-systems world of 1's and 0's; of self-replicating, anonymous, and invisible actors; and of the global marketplace for information instead of more concrete and physical goods and services.  The study of ethics in the Information Age is fascinating and mentally challenging, and this course should equip and guide your journey into this ethics and information maelstrom.