uMUC

Reflective Paper

IFSM 304

3/4/2014

When approaching the thought of taking another ethics class, I really was not as enthusiastic as I should have been. I had what some would call a young man’s attitude about things. I felt like this was just another class and I could just breeze through things. I thought since I had a career that I had been in for the last 8 years, I know all about ethics. But I was under the impression that as long as you did what you thought was right then you are being ethical, But during ethics in information technology class that there are a lot of other things that come into play when you are placed in real world situations.

I learned that when dealing with technology there are multiply people who are investing in you as a technician making the correct choice that is why you should take your time to make decisions and weight out your options. During this course I was put in situations where Reynolds’ seven steps of ethical decision making came in handy. I had to write out the process and at the end of things I found that the decision that was my first reaction was not always the most ethical choice.

During This course I learned about the Framework of a company and who stakeholders are and how important they are to each company. I also learned about all the people that will be affected if one person makes an unethically choice. I learned that ethical checks and balances are put into companies for a reason, and that they are not just trainings that most company have once a year to protect themselves from laws.

Working in a fast pace government desktop support environment a lot of times you don’t get to think about ethics, you are placed in a position where the government department head wants something and they want it now. So technicians are forced to break proper protocol and set aside their ethics. But after learning the effects and damages that could be the result of a simple mistake such as loading software on a work computer when the software is out of there licenses agreement could cost the company $150,000.00 and do damage to the companies reputation.

My Ah-huh moment came in class after I did my presentation of my global ethics article and asked the class weather it was right for the larger company to pay to get there paper work fast tracked. Being in a world where speed was everything I truly felt like yes it is ok because I was told early in life that it takes money to make money. So I was under the impression that if your money is longer than you have other benefits. But my classmate asked me what about the small company that is just starting out, Should they have to wait on their paper work to get completed? And they stated that the large retail store was going to wipe out the small local stores because they can afford to drive the prices low because they can distribute in bulk. I think at that time I realized that some of my views on the subject of ethics was wrong.

In the future I think I.T. as a whole will have problems with becoming to user friendly. When I first started in I.T. it was like an art to put together a computer. But now a days most things are color coded or if it fits plug it in. That could be damaging because just like the Stuxnet virus bad things can come from just plugging things in where they fit. I also think that the I.T. industry is going to grow but I think that the top level people are going to excel and that the people who do help desk are going to disappear. They are already trying to advertise for people to go to websites and the website will fix their computer.

In this short 8 weeks I have learned a lot of thing that I plan on taking with me and applying them to my everyday life in the Information Technology field. I have learned about the legal and economic concerns that companies and I.T. professionals have to look out for. I learned the difference between copyright, Trademark and Patents. I feel like in this class I have meet some interesting people and I will take from this class some of the opinions of my class mates and I think I have changed one android person in the class into an apple lover. This was a great class.