Ethics in Software Engineering practice

In the modern day, It is very important to consider Ethics for any field as they benchmark the morals for doing anything in that field. They address any intentional action that impacts negatively or positively the lives and values of others. “Software engineering is an emerging profession, which is self-conscious of its impact on society and its resulting obligations.”3 It is a fact that Software applications have a significant daily impact on the lives of billions of people which led many in software industry to wrestle with their ethical values. Software engineering conceives itself as a technical discipline which primarily focuses on the technical adequacy of the products developed. Software engineering ethics studies the interactions of human values and technical decisions involved during Software development lifecycle. In this paper, I will discuss in detail about the Ethics in Software Engineering and also the importance of it. Later, I will discuss cases how following and not following these ethics show their impact on the public.

Generally, Developers work together with customers and users to define requirements and specify what the proposed system will do. It is the decision of the Engineer on a particular project where the ethics play a key role. Often, decisions are made while only looking at the technical issues, but those decisions impact others in negative and positive ways. The ethical activity involved in technical decisions should be based on an understanding of the impact of those decisions. The activity and operation of Professional Software Engineering Ethics takes place when any decision made by computing professionals during the design, development, construction and maintenance of computing artifacts. These decisions can be made by individuals, teams, management, or the profession. The decisions should be guided by ethical values.


However, “a good software engineering decision requires an awareness of and a careful consideration of both the technical and the ethical dimensions which follow ethical values.”3 An absence of the awareness of this relationship between technology and values means that the values related to the technology are haphazard. To meet this interaction the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS) has come up with “Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice” which defines principles for developing software engineering practice.


What is Code of Ethics? In general, Code of Ethics is statements about the interaction of technology and values that primarily ensure that the interaction is not a haphazard to the society. The goal of all of these codes is to make sure that the activity of practicing professionals as individual, teams, management, or professional organizations, advance and protect human values rather than do damage to them. Every field which follows a professional practice like medicine, business, law, software engineering etc has its own standard definitions for code of ethics.

In the same way, Software Engineering Code of Ethics defines eight principles that the software engineers must commit themselves to during the different phases of a Software development. These principles are intended as a standard for teaching and practicing software engineering. They are as follows:

“1. PUBLIC - Software engineers should act consistently with the public interest while developing software.

2. CLIENT AND EMPLOYER - Software engineers should act in a manner that is in
the best interests of their client or employer and that is consistent with the public interest. i.e., they should consider ethical values before taking decisions on products.

3. PRODUCT - Software engineers shall ensure that their products and related modifications meet the highest professional standards possible and does not cause any hazard to its society and it’s citizens.

4. JUDGMENT - Software engineers should maintain integrity and independence in
their professional judgment of the decisions they make.

5. MANAGEMENT - Software engineering managers and leaders should subscribe to
and promote an ethical approach to the management of software development and maintenance.

6. PROFESSION - Software engineers shall advance the integrity and reputation of
the profession consistent with the public interest.

7. COLLEAGUES - Software engineers shall be fair to and supportive of their
colleagues.

8. SELF - Software engineers shall participate in lifelong learning regarding the
practice of their profession and promote an ethical approach to the practice of their profession.” 1


As a software engineer applies these principles, human values become intertwined with technical decisions. These principles advance the professionalism in software engineering. Hence, the code of ethics depicts two basic aspects of the software engineer's role. One is the software engineer is employed by clients to serve their interests; and the other is the software engineers who represent their clients’ interests but cannot act in a way that endangers society or is contrary to the principles of software engineering code of ethics.


In addition to that, IEEE-CS has also defined Ethics on a personal level for a Software Engineer. According to it, “

Never steal data for personal gain.

• Never distribute or sell proprietary information obtained as part of your work on a software project.

• Never maliciously destroy or modify another person’s programs, files or data.

• Never violate the privacy of an individual, a group, or an organization.

• Never hack into a system for sport or profit.

• Never create or promulgate a computer virus or worm.

• Never use computing technology to facilitate discrimination or harassment.” 1


Certainly, the results of not following the code of ethics can cause a huge loss to the people and also could prove to be hazardous to the society and its citizens. For instance, Developers work together with customers and users to define requirements and specify what the proposed system will do. If, once it is built, the system works according to specification but harms someone physically or financially, who is responsible? Between 1985 and 1987 at least six patients were seriously injured or killed when they received massive overdoses of radiation from the Therac-25, a radiation therapy machine. The overdoses were attributed to operator error, poor software engineering, over-reliance on software for safety assurance, inadequate response by the manufacturer when accident reports began to surface, and unrealistic risk assessments. This is an obvious case of not following ethical values during software development by the engineers.

In conclusion, the importance of following the Software engineering ethics can be clearly understood through this paper. If every software engineer practices the principles mentioned according to, then there is a great opportunity for us to look at a better, healthier and safer society. From this, it is unstoppable for us to say that the next step in software engineering ethics is a change in culture where there is a mutual understanding and expectation of ethical behavior of software engineers and those who are impacted by their products.

References:

1. Computer Society and ACM Approve Software Engineering Code of Ethics
- Don Gotterbarn, Keith Miller, Simon Rogerson
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#Ethics_in_the_professions
3.http://books.google.com/books?id=gC_e3R2ljCEC&pg=PA18&lpg=PA18&dq=software+engineering+ethics&source=web&ots=XVb0WhkAq&sig=favfXED9oqLE1S6PtPcXFhHJRmg#PPA20,M1
4. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ethics

Create your own e-mail Id independent of domain...like "urID@urDomain.com"

Before days it used to be like you can tell about a person just giving a glance at his stature. But now one must really accept the fact that a kind of a person (Netizen) can be identified by just looking at his e-mail ID. It may not be always true but in my experience I have seen IDs like "anu_silent@domain.com", "tom_siliconvalley@domain.com" etc.


But now, you can create your own domain as Microsoft has started a new web site called "coolhotmail.com" in which you will have a choice of 250 unique domain names to choose from. You can choose your domain based on your favorite actor, your aims, your character, your location, humorous domains etc. like aryan@workaholic.com, jim@itsmychoice.com, angel@underpaid.co.in etc. This is pretty cool.


Microsoft has a good reason for beginning the website. It has conducted a survey in Mumbai where more than 80% of the Netizens have preferred for Mail ID with the domain name they wished for to some ID with specific domain name. Microsoft has just made 250 just as a startup. In the future, it is planning to add more domain names.


My advice is to create your ID you wish as early as possible before you loose one. I have already created one. It is sundeep@techgeek.co.in . So hurry up!!

Copyright infringement - what can be done to prevent it??

Copyright Infringement is a prevailing problem which is leading to massive revenue loss for publishing and broadcasting companies. It is a big challenge to protect copyrights and stop plagiarism in the current situation because of the wide growth of Internet over the world. The purpose of this project is to create a system that controls the copyright infringement of any material by making the people aware that it is a kind of felony, using advanced technologies to control piracy and implementing strict laws on the people who commit this felony. In this way, the person who wishes to do this will be bewared of doing it.

Copyright is a set of exclusive rights possessed by a creator to protect his/her creation against unauthorized usage. Creation can be of any form like poems, paintings, software photographs, writings, literary work, movies, audio etc. To get a copyright one needs to submit his/her work to the copyright commission in material form. The companies buy the copyrights from the creators investing lots of money. The companies invest huge money on copyrights and end up with losses because the sale doesn’t meet their expectation due to piracy especially through Internet and doing this is unauthorized and also completely illegal. Due to this sort of plagiarism a lot of revenue is lost for the publishing and broadcasting companies.


There are many ways in which this process is being done. The copyrighted materials of artist are copied by sharing through internet using peer to peer Software’s like limewire, torrent etc., and used for their own needs. There are not only lots of hardware like CD burners, copiers, scanners, printers etc. involved in this process but also software like CD-rippers, peer to peer file sharing software, cracks for software etc. Any new material like movies, music, software’s are available on the internet the next day they are released and these are distributed and shared by people all over the world .Most of them don’t know that it is wrong and some of them don’t even care that even though they know about it, as the government has no strict laws in regulating this.


This sort of plagiarism can be eradicated by implementing strict laws, using advanced technology and making the people aware of this felony. The CD/DVDs should be made such a way that it can be played and cannot be ripped. Patents and ideas should not be displayed on the internet. Books should not be shared in the .PDF format. Instead they should be shared in such a way that they cannot be copied and shared. Only public domain material should be shared

The major hurdle for this sort of piracy is primarily the Internet. There should be a constant monitoring over the internet to stop sharing of files through peer to peer. The CD/DVD copiers are also making the situation worse by replicating some copyright works sold in CD/DVD. The social organizations must make people aware of this crime by advertising and organizing some public meetings. Another way is that the government should make the laws strict on these kinds of cyber crimes and impeach severe fines or punishment to the people who commit the crime depending of the level of the crime they commit. In this way, the people who try to commit this kind of crime become bewared of doing it. The research groups and companies are collaboratively doing extensive research on developing devices and anti-piracy software that can stop not only making copies of the copyrighted material but also stop them from sharing.

We see that when the piracy is entirely eradicated, we will be certainly exclaimed at the results in the profits of various companies. Also, the day is not for away to eradicate this plagiarism with the joint effort of Law and Technology.

The impact of Team Dynamics on my projects in CmpE 202 course

What Are Team Dynamics? This is the first question I asked myself repeatedly before writing this short essay. Team Dynamics are factors which play a key role in a team, if involved in a team there will be no way the Team is going to fail. I mean if the Project took up by the team may fail but the effort put by the team will not go futile. This means that the effective team members make a dynamic team.

Initially, I was very ambiguous about what should be written about Team Dynamics as I have no idea about it and The Professor also had not mentioned any insinuations about Team Dynamics in the class. The Team Dynamic Information provided by the Professor had good detailed information which explained elements of Team Dynamics like Full Participation, Trust, Open Communication, Clear Roles, Quality Control and Risk-Taking.

It is said that “Team Dynamics are the unseen forces that operate in a team between different groups of people”. Yes, I do accept this statement. This fact has been playing a key role in our team anonymously whenever we used to go for a voluntary meeting to meet the Professor to discuss about our projects.

Our Team named "Pinnacle" consists of 5 members. All of the members were from different parts of India. It was a completely novice and different experience working in a Team for the Projects. There were initially 4 members in our Team as preferred by The Professor. But, eventually one member got into our team on our voluntary decision as he was standing alone. We thought if 5 members were there it would make our work easy. But, it did not happen as we thought as he turned out to be a good Reflector.

The Forming Stage of our Team did not took a long time as we already had acquaintance before the Formation of the Team as we had met in another course before enrolling into Cmpe-202 Course . But, when the fifth member got added into the team we did needed some time to get acquainted with him. Our Team was fortunate so as to say, we did go well with Storming, Norming and Performing Phases of the Project.

Every Project much have well defined Goal, otherwise what is the purpose of a Project. Our goals and deadlines were pre-defined by our Professor which made our team work much easier. As most of the Team members were good initiators, Facilitators, and optimists we did not have any problem doing our work together.

Our Project #1 dealt with the traditional model of our Problem Statement “Integrated Water Management”. Project #2 is Stability model which dealt with EBTs, BOs and IOs. Project #3 was Patterns Design and Analysis.I really enjoyed working on all the three Projects, but I personally felt Project#3 to be very interesting and challenging where I have kept a little more effort in it.

For Project #1, we did lack in our Team Work which eventually resulted in a bad grade. The Team also lacked discussions with the Professor and met the professor only once to discuss about the Project. After seeing our results of Project # 1 we felt that we need to be more optimistic on Our Project#2 which deals with stability model of our Problem “Integrated Water Management”. The Team had also given good effort in Project # 3.

The impact of project #2 traditional models on team dynamics:

The Project #2 Traditional Models was nothing but doing the Traditional Model of Project#1 with Stability Model involved in it which included EBTs, BOs and IOs. To do project#2 as an Individual is a waste of Work as We needed to find three ultimate goals (EBTs) for our Problem Statement. We did open communication with each other to find the ultimate Goals. We find some of them and discussed them with our Professor. We proceeded further upon Professors Suggestion.

Our Team Had Good Initiators to start the Project and all the Team members were optimistic in taking decisions. We followed Object Oriented Heuristics suggested by our Professor in his weekly lectures. His lectures helped us a lot in doing the work for the Project. By the way none of our Team members ever missed a single lecture of the course in the semester.

For Traditional model, we had to sit together to discuss about Each Use case and discuss about the various classes involved in each use cases, their corresponding attributes and Corresponding Interfaces. Without Team Effort we cannot decide on the interfaces and Attributes.

Quality Assurance or Reviewing played a key role in the Project #2. If three of the members used to sit together and document Traditional Model two used to review that everything is going on well with the Project. That is, there was no chance of us making a minor mistake in the project. Thus, I can conclude that there were many lessons learnt from Traditional Model and it had a good impact on Team Dynamics.


The impact of projects #2 & #3 stability models on Team Dynamic:

The Project #2 and Project # 3 involved stability models and patterns to be designed. Again I need to mention that without Total Participation, open Communication and Quality Assurance it is impossible to do these Projects. I was fortunate that I had a team which does not conflict with menial things. The main problem we faced doing Stability model is that we had to find EBTs for BOs depending upon the object given. But, with the Open communication with our Professor we got good aid in finding the ultimate goals for the Stability Model.

Determining the Examples for each pattern was pretty tough but our team work has helped in doing the Job well. Thus, I conclude that Stability Model had a good impact on the Team Dynamics on our Team.

A Review on “Living and Working in China: Understanding Communication Requirements”.

Firstly, the information provided and the efforts put on by the authors for the article can be highly appreciated. They were adept in elucidating every key point in detail and meticulously focusing on that key point with very good instances of the situations involved in them. The intended audience was the technical personnel who are going to work or working in the Chinese business world. The Authors were successful in distinguishing the key points and common mistakes that new visitors to China make. This article depicts the way Chinese culture influences the people involved in its business world. Finally, the authors were successful in offering their perspectives both as Westerners who have lived and worked in China and as a Chinese person who currently resides and studies in the U.S.


One of the aspects I liked about this article is the way how the authors mentioned, addressing the Chinese people differs from the way the westerner’s addressing. I should say one should be very careful before addressing a person. It was very interesting to read how the approach of calling the person in the opposite sex with their first name or just first letter in their name changes the understanding of relationship between them. If you do the same here in the western world it does not make much of a difference. Another is the way usage of powerful words in the communication helps the Chinese remember a person and how the Chinese standards differ in understanding English even with a simple change of sense. I liked the way Chinese people use slogans in their day to day communication. I do think it is a very effective way to communicate with people. I liked the way they follow their unique tradition of using the official letter jie shao xin.


The Authors clearly mention how scrupulous one should be while communicating with the Chinese people and presenting themselves officially through a sealed letter. They told us to follow the rules of English Grammar strictly while communicating with Chinese people as English is their second language and they strictly follow the rules of the language according to text provided by the Authority. As the Chinese people have good memorization, even a simple grammatical error in our language creates ambiguity and it lets down our being accepted by the people with whom we are supposed to work. And, the way contradicting a person’s ideas or even calling the word “plagiarism” in the communication can put us in trouble. We need to understand and develop our own way to combat chen mo shi jin(“silence is golden”) attitude which does not really help in effective communication with our colleagues. They say that we should not be really frustrated with the un-specific response we get from the Chinese people. Actually, it is quite common in most of the countries. So, it is better to get used to this.


The aspects in Chinese culture which depreciates the effective communications are the way the people follow the “chen mo shi jin” attitude. The authors mentioned a way to overcome this situation. But, I don’t think it will work all the times. It is always good to question or contradict someone’s ideas even if they are higher officials. It can solve lots of problems. It is mentioned that the Chinese people are good listeners. It is also actually necessary to be a good speaker for an effective communication. The 4 hour classes will be more interesting if there is interaction between the listeners and speaker.Also, The Chinese practice of using someone else’s ideas or words without the attribution of the owner for their own profit which we call “plagiarism” in western culture is not at all a good practice for communication, esp. for Technical communication. One should not get credit for other person’s intellectual property. It is highly illegal. The Article says that “The traditional structure of the educational system in China both promotes and rewards what Westerners consider plagiarism”1, I strongly think that measures are needed to be taken to stop this kind of practice. Even though, if it is followed as a tradition, the Chinese need to stop this even if it impacts on their cultural sensitivity. It also has a bad influence on their culture from other cultures.

I conclude that this article was very helpful in understanding the Chinese communication behavior. One can clearly understand the Chinese cultural sensitivity and challenges involved in their communication styles after reading this article. I liked the way the authors support their article by stating “Ru xiang sui su, which means “enter the village, follow the custom,” is the Chinese equivalent of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” 1. Because, it is quite true and makes our life easy when we go to a new place like China.

References:

(1) Living and Working in China: Understanding Communication
Requirements - William O. Coggin, Betty F. Coggin, Xiaoli Li

a view on CoPE (Community of Practice Environment).

I would like to discuss about challenges, trends and experiences of community based software like web portal EPA.Net and the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) using CoPE. CoPE is a web-based tool for groups to democratically work together and decide upon actions of common interest.


So, what exactly is CoPE? CoPE stands for Community of Practice Environment. CoPE is built by modifying an open source content management system called Plone with presentation code implemented in HTML and CSS and back-end in python. It is a web-based tool for primarily focused on informal groups that might lack IT expertise and the resources to purchase it to democratically work together and decide up on actions of common interest. Information is represented in the form of a document such as a Microsoft Word document, PDF Document, or text. The CoPE system is designed to support the creation of documents, sharing them with the group, discussing a document, and ultimately making decisions on it as a group. This process is captured through a workflow where the document goes through different states like submitted, voting, approved, archived etc. as it progresses. Another feature of CoPE is that it can be customized to the group's needs through selection on discrete parameters. A site coordinator organizes the activity of each CoPE site. Finally, CoPE is not a tool for group editing, Version Control and Management and synchronous collaborations like live virtual meetings and chat. Some of these may be implemented in the future versions of CoPE.


Some of the advantages of CoPE are it makes the user experience smoother for the non-technical population by providing a simple interface. The interface for CoPE attempts to eliminate technical jargon and make basic tasks easy to perform and also it provides online documentation on how to perform various tasks. The governance and decision making style of CoPE is democratic. This concept is most obviously seen in the document voting process. The installation and operation of CoPE requires no advance technological skills. CoPE allows more flexibility for groups by allowing them to customize the system based on a pre-determined set of parameters such as the voting mode for documents.


The Challenges faced by CoPE are factors like community congestion, Targeted groups lacking technical Skill and Existing software targeted to Organizations which already have a pre-existing imposed structure. Other is Abuse of such Open Source models is highly frowned upon by the technical open source/hacker communities. The stability lifespan has significantly shortened for Internet enabled applications because of the target of malicious software.


In Conclusion, I would like to say that system proves useful in a range of different settings and is being tried in others. The initial start up is still harder than it should be and currently requires some direct interaction. Much work remains to be done, but they believe that they have shown that an open, user-friendly, platform for cooperative work is feasible and could have a profound effects.

Strategies for conflict resolution and even prevent conflicts.

Stronger Leadership: If conflict has simmered to the point that symptoms are evident, there is a need for stronger, clearer leadership in the group. This is the case whether there is a designated leader, or whether it is a self-organized collaborative group without a formal leader. Whether formal or informal, a leader must step forward, at least until the conflicts have been addressed and the group has reoriented around a common purpose and agenda.[3]

Clarified roles, goals and processes: Conflict can arise not just because one of the group members has gone wrong, but also because roles, goals, and working processes were never clearly discussed or agreed upon in the first place. Manager or a Leader will be required to guide the group through the freshening of core issues and the reorientation towards clarified roles, goals, and processes for working together toward its shared purpose.

Respectful Communication: It is likely that the conflict resulted from, or at least produced, a state of unskillful, disrespectful communication, the group will need to agree upon communication guidelines and ideals so that each group member is clear about how to interact more skillful with the others in the group. It's possible to have some coaching for the group, and more in-depth coaching for specific group members whose communication skill (or lack of) has been identified as particularly problematic. Once the conflict has been resolved and the group has been reoriented, ensure that there is a clear plan for ongoing communications, so the group operates regularly on a foundation of shared understanding and common agreement.[3]

Active Listening: Active listening is a valuable skill for resolving conflicts because it enables you to demonstrate that you understand what another person is saying and how he or she is feeling about it. Active listening is a way of checking whether your understanding is correct. It also demonstrates that you are listening and that you are interested and concerned. These all help resolve a situation where there are conflicting points of view.

Feedback: Feedback is an effective conflict resolution technique. In feedback, one individual confront another in a structured setting with a carefully crafted statement. It defuses anger and brings rationality to a discussion.[8]

Strategies for Preventing Team Conflicts:

The first step in conflict management is learning how to prevent or minimize conflict. Most of the conflict-resolution interventions can easily be converted into preventative measures by practicing skillful leadership and communication, and having clear purpose, roles, and processes identified and agreed upon by your group before conflict begins to corrode the group's momentum, morale, productivity, and sense of shared purpose. Often, the real costs of prevention are far less than the actual costs of corrosive conflict, and preventative measures are much more lasting than are situational conflict interventions. Here are few strategies for preventing conflict:

At the beginning of each project, or each meeting, ground rules should be developed. These should incorporate processes or behaviors that the group will allow or prohibit. Ground rules can be useful because as conflict arises, the leader can refer the team back to them for guidance. These tend to be good objective guidelines that remove the leader from the role of enforcer.[2]

Develop a team agreement on how the group will resolve conflict if it does occur. This gets them to focus on good resolution behaviors, and prepares the team with a process that is available if necessary.

It is important to focus on goals of the team early in the process. Often conflict arises from goal miss-alignment, and if this is cleared up early, then it could minimize problems later. If new members are added to the team, then it would be beneficial to re-visit this exercise again.

what are the Reasons for Team conflict ???

Conflict arises from differences. When individuals come together in teams their differences in terms of power, values and attitudes, and social factors all contribute to the creation of conflict. It is often difficult to expose the sources of conflict. Conflict can arise from numerous sources within a team setting and generally falls into three categories:[5]

Communication factors: Barriers to communication is the most important factors and can be a major source of misunderstanding. Communication barriers include poor listening skills; insufficient sharing of information; differences in interpretation and perception; and sometimes nonverbal hint being ignored or missed.

Structural Factors: Structural disagreements include the size of the organization, turnover rate, levels of participation, reward systems, and levels of interdependence among employees.

Personal Factors: Personal factors include things such as an individual's self-esteem, their personal goals, values and needs. In order for conflict to be dealt with successfully, managers and team members must understand its unpredictability and its impact on individuals and the team as a whole.

The manager, as a leader, holds the key to helping team members resolve conflict and develop trust in each other. Without trust team members will not bond and they will not be able to deal with conflict.

what is a team???

Team is defined as a group of two or more individuals engaged in some joint action with a specific mission or goal. In most traditional perspective, teams usually have a leader and members who work closely together over time on a common set of interests. Team work is very important in organizations because productivity, creativity, and results will be greater in a team environment.

Teamwork has to be well managed. A balanced team composition is essential. Team members have to be carefully selected. The full range of knowledge and skills required must be present. Team members need to be committed to the task. Teamwork plays an important role because efficiency and productivity are the result of a well functioning team. In order to have productivity and efficiency, team needs following essentials:

Common vision: The vision creates the foundation to a team. In order to be successful, every team member must believe in the vision. The group must have a reason for working together that makes sense to the team members. They should have a sense of belongingness to the project

Defining goals and objectives: A clear goal provides a guiding light for the team and Clarity provides the understanding necessary to contribute fully within a team. If objectives are established in the beginning of the team's formation then success is likely to occur. If the goals are not compatible, groups or individuals in the company start pulling in different directions and the overall progress of the company is affected.

Assigning roles and responsibilities: Having a clear understanding of every one's role in the team prevents future disrespect. To set a clear direction for the team, the role of each team member needs to be defined clearly. This shows each person how they can contribute to achieving the goal. In this process, it is important to develop clear areas of responsibility, provide adequate resources and ensure that each person is accountable for their actions.

Communication: Communication seems to be the key to making interpersonal relationships work. A team is very much an interpersonal relationship with a lot of potential pitfalls. It is common for people on a team to try to bury problems due to a desire to not create a scene. This can be very destructive because the issues do not get resolved. Instead, they lie buried and slowly build into something that is blown out of proportion. It is important to safeguard the team from this by setting up a system of routine meetings where people have a chance to discuss potential problems.