Building Computing Ethics from the Ground Up

1. Building Computing Ethics from the Ground Up Gail Kaiser Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Fall 2000

2. The Problem… • As postmaster@rpi.edu and Computer Security Incident Responses Coordinator, I am often the first point of contact when ethics violations occur either by our students or our students as victims. • Meeting with students often reveals little knowledge of cyber ethics. • Since computing is incorporated into elementary school curricula, that is the time to begin introducing computing ethics. • Most teachers warn about chat rooms to protect children from the Internet. We also need to protect our university resources.

3. Some Examples… • Survey of 41 middle school students revealed little regard for cyber ethics. They seemed to feel that what they had heard didn’t apply to them. • Napster is okay because the record companies and performers are already “rich enough.” • Students know what plagiarism is but it’s ok because their “teacher’s don’t use computers.” • It is “ok” to copy computer games their friends bought because they weren’t going to sell the game to someone else.

4. The Plan… • Introduce computing ethics at a much younger age; i.e. in middle school. • Guide teams of undergraduates in producing a video or game that will engage and appeal to young computer users to be distributed to middle school students. • Our undergraduates will survey a larger number of local middle school students. • Based on results, plan an appropriate multimedia project that will most appeal to this age group.

5. Present Status • Difficulty in having our undergraduates adopt the project. • No undergraduate team took on the project presented by the Project Director for the “Capstone” degree completion requirement for this term. • Probably not a “fun” project to work on. • Higher hopes for next term.