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PE_Assignment1_Set 1
-
May 2015
Program:
Professional Year Program
Course:
Professional Environments
Assignment: 1
Topic:
Ethics, Professionalism and G
overnance
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
–
Jennifer
the Consultant
Three years ago Jennifer
started her own consulting business. She has been so successful that she
now
has several people working for her and many clients. Their consulting work include.sd advising
on how to set up corporate intranets, designing database management systems, and advising about
security.
She is currently designing a database management syste
m for the personnel office of a medium
-
sized company.
Jennifer
has involved the client in the design process, informing the CEO, the
director of computing, and the director of personnel about the progress of the system. It is now
time to make decisions a
bout the kind and degree of security to build into the system.
Jennifer
has
described several options to the client. Because the system is going to cost more than previously
planned, the client has decides to opt for a less secure system.
Jennifer
belie
ves that the
information they will be storing is extremely sensitive. It will include performance evaluations,
medical records for filing insurance claims, salaries and so forth.
With weak security, employees working on client machines may be able to figu
re out ways to gain
access to this data, not to mention the possibility of online access from hackers.
Jennifer
feels
strongly that the system should be more secure. She has tried to explain the risks, but the CEO,
director of computing and director of p
ersonnel all agree that less security will do.
What should she do? Should she refuse to build the system as they request?
PE_Assignment1_Set 1
-
May 2015
Case Study 4
–
Quality Assurance Case
A small software company is working on an integrated inventory control system for a very large
national shoe manufacturer. The system will gather sales information daily from shoe stores
nationwide. This information will be used by the accounting, shippi
ng, and ordering departments to
control all of the functions of this large corporation. The inventory functions are critical to the
smooth operation of the system.
Jane, a quality assurance engineer with the software company, suspects that the inventory
functions
of the system are not sufficiently tested, although they have passed all their contracted tests. She is
pressured by her employers to sign off on the software. Legally she is only required to perform
those tests which have been agreed to in the
original contract. However, her considerable
experience in software testing has led her to be concerned over risks of the system.
Her employers say that they will go out of business if they do not deliver the software on time. Jane
contends if the Inven
tory sub
-
system fails, it will significantly harm their client and its employees. If
the potential failure were to threaten lives, it would be clear to Jane that she should refuse to sign
off. But since the degree of threatened harm is less, Jane is face
d with a difficult ethical decision.
Case Study 7
–
Website Links
Yan is a public servant,
he is a web developer within a
department of a state government. Yan has
been given responsibility for developing a tourism website by the I.T. Manager Sarah. Yan adds
various links to news services to enliven this government webpage. These links include global news
channels.
It is
later fo
und 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.
Sarah, the I.T manager of t
he department had not seen the website before it went live but even if
she had it is unlikely that she 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 orde
r.
Sarah now needs to determine who should take responsibility and what actions should be taken
about the event. She needs to prevent recurrence of this type of problem.
Briefly discuss the dilemma for Sarah. Show your utilisation of either Thomas White
or Chris
MacDonald's methodology to demonstrate how Sarah might analyse and resolve the dilemma.
Provide a recommendation of what actions Sarah should ini
tiate and to whom she needs to
communicate throughout the process.
Include in your answer those clau
ses from
the ACS C
ode of Ethics and ACS C
ode of Professional
Conduct that are relevant and briefly explain why. Refer also to any relevant legislation again with an
explanation of how it relates.
PE_Assignment1_Set 1
-
May 2015
Assignment Task
F
rom 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 th
e scenario may recur. Support your answers with relevant references (as well as the Codes
and Laws).
Things to Consider in Your A
ssignment:
You
should list
at least 3
clauses 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
Aust
ralian 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 400
-
500 words in length
(excluding your cod
e 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‐t
ext 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 a
rt, 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 guideline
s
.
•
15% meeting the procedural req
uirements, 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 a
nd supported them with relevant,
correct referencing,
•
2
0% how well you convinced the reader that you understood the issues,
•
5% did the material generate interest in the reader?
