The Need for Ethics Education in Computer Curriculum

Abstract

The availability of the computer to a broad section of the community has brought under its influence a number of individuals who may not have been so well disciplined in appropriate ethical behavior. Lacking precedents and truly parallel paradigms as in driver and sex education, this paper recommends that earnest consideration must be given to introducing ethical concepts and case studies into secondary school classes as well as in professional school curriculum related to computing. Surveys have shown that the person most likely to have misused a computer/communication system is the employee of the company under attack. It is the responsibility of the computer community to reach as many of these employees during their formative years to divert them from inappropriate practices. The objective of this paper is to consider the state of affairs in computing which lead to deep concerns about ethical behavior and to present proposals for the inclusion of ethical concepts in early computer related courses.