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 2
Maureen works in a large government state department dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. The agency administers programs for individuals with drug and alcohol problems, and maintains a huge database of information on the clients who use these services. Some of the data files contain the names and current addresses of clients.
Maureen has been asked to take a look at the track records of the treatment programs. She is to put together a report that contains the number of clients seen in each program each month for the past five years: length of each client’s treatment, number of clients who return after completion of a program, criminal histories of clients, and so on. In order to put together this report, Maureen has been given access to all files in the agency’s main server. After assembling the data into a file that includes the clients’ names, she downloads the file to her office computer.
Under pressure to get the report finished by the deadline, Maureen decides she will have to work at home over the weekend in order to finish on time. She copies the file to a USB and takes it home. After finishing the report, she leaves the USB at home and forgets about it.
Briefly discuss the dilemma for Maureen. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White or Chris MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how Maureen might analyse and resolve the dilemma. Provide a recommendation of what actions Maureen 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 6
Christina is a programmer for a small software development company. This company is still establishing its market share and is quite aggressive in setting software release dates.
Christina is one of a small team responsible for programming and testing the next release of their accounting package software. There are several programs which Christina has written and they have been tested successfully by a colleague. Christina is now testing three programs written by a colleague and has found minor bugs in each of them. Their author is fixing the bugs and then Christina will retest. She expects this to take a further three weeks.
Before all these bugs are resolved, management wishes to release the software to the public so as to meet the previously predicted finish date. To achieve this Christina, as tester, will need to sign that tests are completed but she knows this is not true.
Discuss briefly the ethical dilemma that Christina faces. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White or Chris MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how Christina might analyse and resolve the dilemma. Provide a recommendation of what actions Christina should take and with whom she might 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 9
Mandy is a security administrator for a company with 500 employees, this is an ongoing job (not a short contract) and she wishes to stay at this company for a long time. Her manager gives her the task of providing weekly reports showing which web pages have been accessed by individual employees and flagging any websites that are questionable (such as pornography).
Mandy is aware that employees have not been asked to sign any agreement about which web page they visit while at work using work computers. She is also aware that employees may be penalised.
Discuss briefly the ethical dilemma that this presents to Mandy outlining the potential outcomes if she provides the report. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White or Chris MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how Mandy might analyse and resolve the dilemma. Provide a
recommendation of what actions Mandy should take and how she should communicate her choices.
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 again 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.
1. Your analysis, discussion and recommendations should use the framework you selected in Week 3 – Solving an Ethical Dilemma. Read the short guide from Chris MacDonald, “A Guide to Moral Decision Making”. (Note: this is available as a printable PDF version for download).
(use this framework)
•
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?
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