The Technical Curriculum and Ethics

(from Florence Olsen: Learning How to Maintain Large Information Systems)

Ethics can be integrated into a technical curriculum by studying how to protect the privacy of information, both proprietary information and information about the employees of the company. [Students] need to know how important it is to protect that information and make it available only to those people who need to know.

Related to this are the legal issues involving computing. In order to protect yourself and your employer, you need to understand the intricacies of copyright and patents, and to know when they’re appropriate [to apply] and how to respect them.  Trade secrets are governed not be federal but by state law. Students don’t naturally come by that knowledge, and yet it is so important to employers that they have employees who are aware of these things. Maybe students don’t know state law and federal law, but they can know enough to ask at the appropriate time.

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