Tutorial One: Information Technology and Ethical Issues

This class was all about IT and ethical issues surrounding this.

Information Technology (IT) is defined as the production, storage and communication of information using computers and microelectrics (Collins Concise Dictionary, 1989). In today's society, often referred to as 'Generation Y', we are surrounding by IT. The packaged food we eat in our lunch break is produced by a form of IT. In our pockets we carry around IT. Lets be honest, Information Technology is taking over our world.

As I have mentioned previously I would not classify myself as someone confident in Information Technology but when I began thinking about it I realised even I have a lot of IT systems and devices that I am confident using. The cellular device is something I generally carry around with me, I feel confident with my telephone use, I have conquered emailing and now even dabble in the art of facebook.

On my fieldwork three placement we used a reasonable amount of assisstive technology and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about this and seeing it's many benefits with the children we worked with. I hope to talk about my experience using Clicker5 later on.

Of course there are many ethical considerations that arise when capturing, sharing and transfaring information via IT devices. There has been many news stories surrounding photos being taken in changing rooms and public toilets. The ethics surrounding sharing of photos often hits the news particularly for those who are celebrities. Here are some definitions regarding ethics:
Computer Ethics is a branch of practical philosophy which deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct (retrieved Fevruary 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/computer_ethics).

Intellectual Property is an umbrella term for various legal intitlements which attach to certain types of information, ideas, or other intangibles in their expressed form (retrieved Fevruary 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/intellectual_property).

Social Justice mostly refers to an ideal of society, where "justice" refers to economic status rather than to the administration of laws. It is based on the idea of a society which gives individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the benefits of society (retrieved Fevruary 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/social_justice).

Informed Consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given consent based upon an appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of an action (retrieved Fevruary 14, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/informed_consent).

By grasping an understanding of IT and the ethical issues surrounding it, we as future occupational therapists set ourselves up for safe, ethical practice. No matter the setting we end up in it is likely that IT will be involved somewhere whether it just be to type up those exciting notes or whether it be providing someone with further independence via IT systems.