Professional Responsibility

DQ2: Professional Responsibility
As a computer professional, the responsibilities we have to the society has gotten to a level that it affects every aspect of human life and this has made it to be something that should be taking very seriously. Computing technology has evolved across all works of life medical, manufacturing, agriculture, education amongst others. And it has affected almost every human being on the face of the earth one way or the other and has also reshaped the way of life of humans. For example a mobile phone has an unlimited functionality aided by the use of applications and access to the internet which can be used for virtually everything.
Below are four categories of responsibilities of a computer professional to both the members of the IT profession and the society (Loui and Miller 2007). I. Responsibilities to Clients and Users II. Responsibilities to Other Professionals III. Responsibilities to Employers IV. Responsibilities to the Public

I. Responsibilities to Clients and Users
This evolving technological growth cannot be left only in the hands of clients and users only. That is, after development the computer professionals still has a lot to do in aiding users in issues that are related to ethical, legal and social which is being included in curriculum of engineering courses in most schools (Adams and McCrindle 2008).
For example a computer professional that works as an employee or as a consultant is expected to perform assigned tasks competently according to professional standards which include attention to details, attention to technical excellence and the need to take cognisance to the social effects of computers on the users and the operator.
In accessing the capabilities and risks of a computer system the computer professional must be truthful and honest in his opinion i.e. report research and findings honestly and accurately, when designing a new solution the professional must consider both the specification of the client and how the solution might affect the quality of life of the users and anyone that has access to the solution.

II. Responsibilities to Other Professionals
At every time professionals interact there must be due respect given to each other this respect is known as collegiality i.e. when a professional uses the intellectual idea of another professional it must be credited to the original owner of the idea by proper citing or referencing of the source used, not doing this is considered to be a theft of the idea or work of the owner and this is plagiarism which is a grievous offence in the academic world particularly University of Liverpool and it is totally frowned at.

III. Responsibilities to Employers:
The employee/employer relationship is contractual either by working for the employer and to be compensated by salary or by periodic charges which is subject to renewal in a tenor bases. The computer professional in this situation has access to the employee’s confidential information and the professional must keep this information secret, some organisations even make the employee to swear an oath of secrecy and this must be honoured. The professional is expected to be completely loyal to its employer.
The employer also has the wright to its intellectual property and the computer professional does not has the right to profit from this even if the solution was developed by the computer professional as long as the resource used is owned by the employer.

IV. Responsibilities to the Public
Engineering code of ethics oblige the engineer to ensure safety and risk of life, health and welfare of the public (Bittner and Hornecker 2002). Computer professionals should also take this ethics into consideration and to also improve the quality of life of the public especially those who uses computer. There is also need to educate the public on the usage and understanding of the use of computers this includes the pros and cons of computers.

Conclusion
For every profession there are standards and organisations that regulate the ethics and conduct of the professionals and the computer profession is not of exempted. There are several professional bodies that regulate and standardise ethics few examples are Commuter Organisation of Nigeria (CON), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), British Computer Society (BCS), Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-CS).

References:
Michael C. Loui and Keith W. Miller (2007), Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Computing
Andrew A. Adams and Rachel J. McCrindle (2008) Pandora’s Box