Program: Professional Year Program
Course:
Assignment: 1 Professional Environments
Topic: Ethics, Professionalism and Governance
Available: Week 3 open
Due: Week 4 close (Saturday midnight AEST)
Read the 3 Case Studies below and select ONE as the basis of your analysis and discussion. Please indicate clearly which Case Study you have chosen
Case Study 1
John, A statistical database programmer, is trying to write a large statistical program needed by his company. Programmers in this company are encouraged to write their own work and to publish their algorithms in professional journals. After months of tedious programming, John has found himself stuck on several parts of the program. His manager, not recognising the complexity of the problem, wants the job completed in the next few days. Not knowing how to solve the problems, John remembers that a co-worker had given him source listings from his current work and from an earlier version of a commercial software package developed by another company. On studying these programs, he sees two areas of code which could be directly incorporated into his own program. He uses segments of code from both his co-worker and the commercial software, but does not tell anyone or mention it in the documentation. He completes the project and turns it in a day ahead of time.
Briefly discuss the dilemma for John. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White or Chris MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how John might analyse and resolve the dilemma. Provide a recommendation of what actions John should have taken.
Include in your answer those clauses from the ACS code of Ethics and ACS code of Professional Conduct that are relevant and briefly explain why. Refer also to any relevant legislation with an explanation of how it relates.
Case Study 4
Brenda has been asked to observe how junior management are using new accounting software at a leading city accounting firm. As part of informed consent, staff are informed that they will remain anonymous. During her observations, Brenda notices that many of the junior management staff are making a particular data entry error when using the software. These errors are causing the accounting firm to lose profit. Company policy dictates clearly that worker salaries will be docked for clear mistakes leading to the loss of company profit. How does Brenda handle this situation?
Briefly discuss the dilemma for Brenda. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White or Chris MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how Brenda might analyse and resolve the dilemma. Provide a recommendation of what actions Brenda should initiate and to whom she needs to communicate throughout the process.
Include in your answer those clauses from the ACS code of Ethics and ACS code of Professional Conduct that are relevant and briefly explain why. Refer also to any relevant legislation with an explanation of how it relates.
Case Study 7
Ruby is a public servant. She is a web developer within a department of a state government. Ruby has been given responsibility for developing a tourism website by the IT Manager Jaspreet. Ruby adds various links to news services to enliven this government webpage. These links include global news channels.
It is later found that those sites sometimes provide news on court cases which are currently under suppression order here in Australia as they are in process. When noticed this causes huge embarrassment to the government department.
Jaspreet, the IT manager of the department had not seen the website before it went live but even if he had it is unlikely that he would have noticed and tested every link. In any case the links were not problematic until a local court case gave rise to a publication suppression order.
Jaspreet now needs to determine who should take responsibility and what actions should be taken about the event. He needs to prevent recurrence of this type of problem.
Briefly discuss the dilemma for Jaspreet. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White or Chris MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how Jaspreet might analyse and resolve the dilemma. Provide a recommendation of what actions Jaspreet should initiate and to whom he needs to communicate throughout the process.
Include in your answer those clauses from the ACS code of Ethics and ACS code of Professional Conduct that are relevant and briefly explain why. Refer also to any relevant legislation with an explanation of how it relates.
Assignment Task
From what you have learned during Week s 3 and 4 of your Professional Environments Course, discuss ethical, professional and legal issues which you consider arise from this scenario. Make some recommendations of actions which could be taken to resolve the situation and/or to minimise the chance the scenario may recur. Support your answers with relevant references (as well as the Codes and Laws).
Things to Consider in Your Assignment:
• You should list at least 3 values from the ACS Code of Ethics and up to 5 clauses from the ACS Code of Professional Conduct, you think are specifically relevant in deciding how to resolve the situation. Make sure that you refer to the most up to date ACS Codes which are available on the ACS website – www.acs.org.au.
• You should also list any relevant Australian legislation that you think applies to this scenario.
• Your analysis, discussion and recommendations should use the framework you selected in Week 3 – Solving an Ethical Dilemma.
Your assignment should be 500 - 800 words in length (excluding your code lists, legislation list and references).
You may need to undertake a small amount of research, however, most information you will need is available via the seminars and their references. Also,
• use a cover page – as per the suggested template,
• use in-text referencing,
• use complete Harvard Notation, submit in “Word” format or equivalent format that can be readily opened in MS Word, keep your formatting simple: Arial 11pt, 10pt after paragraph, single line spacing, headings in bold, maximum 2 indent levels/bullet levels. Do not use page borders, word art, page backgrounds or similar extraneous decoration
• Your uploaded file name should identify you as part of its name – e.g.
PE_Assignment1_William_Smith.
Marking Guide
Marks will be awarded using the following guidelines.
• 15% meeting the procedural requirements, including, spelling, grammar, number of words, document formatting,
• 30% how logically and thoroughly you identified and described professional ,ethical and legal issues arising in the scenario,
• 30% how well you developed your recommendations and supported them with relevant, correct referencing,
• 20% how well you convinced the reader that you understood the issues,
• 5% did the material generate interest in the reader?