Module 9 Lesson 18—Final Course Survey and Closing Thoughts

You have now completed a through course of study on ethics for information technology professionals.  You are now more than qualified to apply what you have learned into your own professional lives.  Hopefully you have also learned a few valuable things that will enhance your personal lives as well.

In Module 1 we learned that ethics is not simply something that only professional ethicists need to know.  Instead it is a vital life skill that needs to be practiced and developed throughout one’s life.  

Module 2 showed us that companies are realizing that there are benefits to thinking ethically and to running their business in a more ethical way than was tolerated in the past. 

We learned some of the most important theories of ethics in Module 3.  We found that Consequential ism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics along with the Ethics of Care all have important contributions to make in how you think about problems you will encounter in your professional life.

We continued this line of thought in Module 4 where we learned about the new fields of information and computer ethics.  These fields deal directly with the unique issues that are raised by information technology. 

Module 5 looked at how professional associations have developed professional codes of ethics and how some computer professionals use their knowledge to help shape public policy on information technology.

In module 6 we learned that sometimes there is no other way but to act as a whistleblower when one is confronted with gross unethical behavior in an employer. 

Module 7 had us dive deeply into some of the most vexing problems we encounter in information technology today such as privacy, anonymous free speech, computer security, pornography, gamification, among others.  We found that racism and sexism still haunt the online world even though it was hoped that we would move beyond it with these technologies.

We explored social media and its dark side in module 8 where we found griefing, trolling, cyberstalking and other unethical behaviors that are exacerbated by the online disinhibition effect.

Finally, in Module 9 we tied this all together with some documents you produced that will help you synthesize what you have learned and apply it to your own lives.

I hope you have enjoyed this course, it is the result of many years of study and work in this field and it is my sincere desire that you have found something valuable that will make the world a bit better by your actions.

All you have left to do now is take the final course survey and any other student evaluations that are distributed.

Be successful and make ethical choices!