Information Ethics Issues Research Articles

Information Ethics Among College Students – Selected Countries Analysis

ABSTRACT Information ethics (IE) influences how people use and produce information and affects information services, information technology (IT), and professional practices. Lack of IE severely affects individuals, teams, organizations, or the community. This research bridges a gap in understanding IE perceptions and IE-declared behavior among different sociodemographic profiles in the global communicative space. We devised an extended version of the IT ethics survey to measure attitudes toward IE issues. We surveyed a sample of 1,648 college students in seven countries. We identified four clusters, uncovering groups of people with very high (Legalists), high (Moralists), fair (Pragmatists), and low (Anarchists) perceptions of the IE issues. Clusters allow the exploration of patterns in IE perceptions that would remain hidden at an individual level of analysis and can help to predict IE-related behavior. The findings imply that teachers should adapt IE curricula, and managers should customize the policies and interventions to these groups. Furthermore, managers should consider group behavior and account for factors that affect it in the corporate world, such as lower computer knowledge. International managers should be aware that certain groups behave more unethically with IT and are overrepresented in certain countries.

Virtuous search: A framework for intellectual virtue in online search

AbstractThis paper presents a conceptual framework for the intellectual virtues in the context of online search. Intellectual virtues are dispositions and skills that enable good thinking and wise reasoning, such as intellectual humility and attentiveness. Despite their importance, today the intellectual virtues tend to be underdeveloped across society. In light of the institutional role that online search plays in life today, there is an opportunity (perhaps an obligation) for online search to facilitate the development of intellectual virtue. The framework presented in this paper locates this development in three areas: the Searcher, the System, and Society. Major issues in information ethics and virtue epistemology are discussed for each of these areas, leading to recommendations for education, design, and research. This paper provides specific suggestions in this regard along with an agenda for future research at the intersection of ethics, epistemology, and online search.

Examining the differences between information professional groups in perceiving information ethics: An analytic hierarchy process study.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has a great impact on contemporary society and people’s lives. Especially with the pervasive access to rapidly developing technology, the impact of ICT on society and human values, the norms of ICT use, and the ethical issues derived from them are beyond the past ethical framework and deserve more research attention. The purpose of this study was to explore the key factors that influence the decision-making behaviors of information professionals when they are faced with information ethics issues. The study adopted the analytic hierarchical process method to develop the evaluation framework and criteria for information professional ethics and employed the professional fields of library and information science and information technology as examples to compare whether information professionals in different fields make different judgments on the aforementioned decision-making criteria. The results of the study validated the professional information ethics hierarchy and criteria and contributed to the field of information ethics research by providing information on the aspects that need attention in the cultivation of professionals in different fields.

Learning Information Ethical Decision Making With a Simulation Game.

Taking advantage of the nature of games to deal with conflicting desires through contextual practices, this study illustrated the formal process of designing a situated serious game to facilitate learning of information ethics, a subject that heavily involves decision making, dilemmas, and conflicts between personal, institutional, and social desires. A simulation game with four mission scenarios covering critical issues of privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility was developed as a situated, authentic and autonomous learning environment. The player-learners were 40 college students majoring in information science and computer science as pre-service informaticists. In this study, they played the game and their game experiences and decision-making processes were recorded and analyzed. The results suggested that the participants’ knowledge of information ethics was significantly improved after playing the serious game. From the qualitative analysis of their behavioral features, including paths, time spans, and access to different materials, the results supported that the game designed in this study was helpful in improving participants’ understanding, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of information ethics issues, as well as their judgments. These findings have implications for developing curricula and instructions in information ethics education.

Information Ethics In The Information Age

Information ethics (IE) is a field of fundamental and applied study that lacks the firm foundation of a definition of information. The at times ethereal, at times pervasive nature of information contributes to the elusiveness of a definition. Paradoxically, everyone seems to recognise information when they see it, but there is great difficulty in arriving at a common perspective. This is partly due to its wide-ranging applicability in many and disparate fields of knowledge, e.g., business, finance, media communications, physics, biology, computer science, engineering, library science, to name a few. All of which share the commonality of dealing with digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) which seem to be the trigger for issues in IE. The purpose of this paper is to suggest the definition of information by Bateson as a basis to seek a fundamental and applied understanding in IE.

Information Ethics Issues In Higher Education Institutions

Information ethics, as is prominent, has arrived as a liberated area of ethical and philosophical inquiry. There are few number of academic journals that are devoted fully to the numerous ethical issues that emerge relating with the new information communication technologies such as the issues include information privacy, safety issues of concern to librarians , a host of intellectual property, and other information professionals. Furthermore, there are also a number of yearly dominant international conferences committed to information ethics. It would barely be hyperbolic the thing to make declaration that information ethics is as “hot” a field of theoretical inquiry as medical ethics.The objective of this paper was to analyze the issues of information quality and to determine the best criteria of information quality in financial institutions. The implications of bad quality information will also be described in order to know how it will cause critical financial problem for industries.

Evaluation of information ethical issues among undergraduate students: An exploratory study

Background: Higher education is increasingly making use of information and communication technology (ICT) to deliver educational services. Young adults at higher educational institutions are also making use of ICTs in their daily lives but are not taught how to do so ethically. Software piracy, plagiarism and cheating, while making use of ICTs, are the most common ethical dilemmas that will face digital natives.Objective: The purpose of this article was to investigate information ethics of young adults at a higher education institution in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.Method: This study made use of a positive, quantitative survey approach. A closed-ended questionnaire was distributed to a group of 312 first-year students, who had registered for a computer literacy class. A response rate of 69.2% was recorded, resulting in 216 students participating in the study. The results were analysed using descriptive and inferential (t-tests) statistics in SPSS V22.Results: The results indicated that plagiarism is a problem among first-year students, and elements of authorship should be included in the curriculum. Students understood what software piracy was but did not think it was wrong to copy software from the Internet. Finally, the students understood that cheating, while making use of technology, is wrong and should be avoided.Conclusion: The recommendation of the study then is that information ethics must be included in the undergraduate curriculum in order to prepare students to deal with these ethical problems.

Toward a Political Philosophy of Information

Many of the most pressing issues in information ethics—informational privacy, surveillance, intellectual property, access to information, and the distribution of information resources—can only be addressed at the level of global politics. This paper develops an approach to theorizing about political questions of concern to information ethics. It begins by situating a political philosophy of information within the broader field of ethics and defending a theoretical approach that is practical, person-centered, and pluralistic. The method of dialogic public reason, as articulated by John Rawls and supplemented with insights from Jürgen Habermas, is described and defended. It is argued that dialogic public reason provides a way to justify political principles in a diverse global context. The paper concludes by relating the idea of dialogic public reason to international human rights. The putative human right to intellectual property is criticized on the grounds that it does not pass the test of public reason.

Attitudes towards information ethics: a view from Egypt

PurposeThe information technology (IT) related ethical issues will only increase in frequency and complexity with the increasing diffusion of IT in economies and societies. The purpose of this paper is to explore Egyptian students' attitudes towards the information ethics issues of privacy, access, property, and accuracy, and it evaluates the possible impact of a number of personal characteristics on such attitudes.Design/methodology/approachThis research utilized a cross‐sectional sample and data set to test five hypotheses. It adopted an instrument to collect the respondents' background information and assess their attitudes towards the information ethics issues of privacy, property, accuracy, and access. Egyptian business students at Alexandria University were asked to participate in the survey. A total of 305 responses were collected and analyzed.FindingsThe analysis revealed that students are sensitive to the ethicality of information privacy, information accuracy, and information access. However, students are insensitive to the ethicality of property (software) right. In addition, years of education have a main effect on students' attitudes towards property, and gender and age have an interaction effect on students' attitudes towards access.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this research are based on a cross‐sectional data set collected from a sample of business students at a public university. Students, however, may make poor surrogates for business or IT professionals. Future similar research designs that employ large samples from Egyptian working professionals and students in other private and public universities are needed to verify the findings of this research.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that the investigated university as well as the other similar Egyptian universities should consider integrating ethics education into their curricula. Teaching information ethics, especially from an Islamic perspective, is expected to positively influence students' information ethical attitudes. The enforcement of the existing property right protection laws should also curb software piracy in the Egyptian market.Originality/valueIt is vital to expand the ethical research currently being performed in IT in order to help bridge the gap between behavior and IT. The findings of this research extend the understanding of students' attitudes towards the information ethics issues in Egyptian culture and contribute to the growing body of knowledge on global information ethics.

Information ethics in Pakistani librarianship: The role of online mailing groups

This study examines the practice of information ethics of the members of the mailing group of the Pakistan Library Automation Group, called PAKLAGPK who participate frequently in the discussions on a variety of LIS ethical issues. The research uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, including a survey questionnaire to measure subscribers' prior knowledge about certain issues in Information Ethics (IE). The research also uses the content analysis method to investigate the information communication behavior of the subscribers over this mailing group.

Information ethics in Pakistani librarianship: The role of online mailing groups

This study examines the practice of information ethics of the members of the mailing group of the Pakistan Library Automation Group, called PAKLAGPK who participate frequently in the discussions on a variety of LIS ethical issues. The research uses both qualitative and quantitative methods, including a survey questionnaire to measure subscribers' prior knowledge about certain issues in Information Ethics (IE). The research also uses the content analysis method to investigate the information communication behavior of the subscribers over this mailing group.

Foundational issues in information ethics

PurposeInformation ethics, as is well known, has emerged as an independent area of ethical and philosophical inquiry. There are a number of academic journals that are devoted entirely to the numerous ethical issues that arise in connection with the new information communication technologies; these issues include a host of intellectual property, information privacy, and security issues of concern to librarians and other information professionals. In addition, there are a number of major international conferences devoted to information ethics every year. It would hardly be overstating the matter to say that information ethics is as “hot” an area of theoretical inquiry as medical ethics. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview on these and related issues.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a review of relevant information ethics literature together with the author's assessment of the arguments.FindingsThere are issues that are more abstract and basic than the substantive issues with which most information ethics theorizing is concerned. These issues are thought to be “foundational” in the sense that we cannot fully succeed in giving an analysis of the concrete problems of information ethics (e.g. are legal intellectual property rights justifiably protected?) until these issues are adequately addressed.Originality/valueThe paper offers a needed survey of foundational issues in information ethics.

Epistemic Value Theory and Information Ethics

Three of the major issues in information ethics – intellectual property, speech regulation, and privacy – concern the morality of restricting people’s access to certain information. Consequently, policies in these areas have a significant impact on the amount and types of knowledge that people acquire. As a result, epistemic considerations are critical to the ethics of information policy decisions (cf. Mill, 1978 [1859]). The fact that information ethics is a part of the philosophy of information highlights this important connection with epistemology. In this paper, I illustrate how a value-theoretic approach to epistemology can help to clarify these major issues in information ethics. However, I also identify several open questions about epistemic values that need to be answered before we will be able to evaluate the epistemic consequences of many information policies.

Information Ethics: An investigation of different subcultures in a society

This article highlights the importance and complexity of creating cultural assets (e.g. corporate norms, shared perceptions) in a global economy. We examine the relationship of the business environment and the gender subcultures on social‐related information technology (IT) issues by comparing the attitudes towards information ethics among Kuwaiti business students and Kuwaiti business practitioners. We find that attitudes towards information ethics issues differ depending on type of respondent and gender. However, the effect of type of respondent depends on gender. Cultural idiosyncrasies of the Middle East are partly helpful in explaining our results. An implication of our results is that cultural assets such as corporate norms and shared perceptions are not easily shaped and require a sustained commitment and investment to overcome the competing influence of forces such as national culture and gender effects.

Genetic engineering: a documentary history

Introduction Animal Applications Agriculture The Human Genome Project Issues in Research Diagnostic Applications of Genetic Information Ethical Issues in Genetic Engineering Cloning

An overview of information ethics issues in a world-wide context

This article presents an overview of significant issues facing contemporary information professionals. As the world of information continues to grow at unprecedented speed and in unprecedented volu...