STONECPS

I often tell my nieces and nephews that their generation is lucky because almost all the information that they need for school can be easily found on the Internet. They can easily search in Google or Wikipedia and with just one click of the button, all the information that they need is presented before them. But because of this easy access of all information on the Internet, Plagiarism has become one of the problems being encountered in Universities.

So how can universities encourage their students to create their own work and avoid Plagiarism:

1. I believe that the first effective method to combat plagiarism is Education. Most of the time, students plagiarize unintentionally. The school should include in their Students’ Orientation, a discussion about Plagiarism so that students will be aware of it and thus, there is a big chance that they will put the best effort to avoid committing Plagiarism.

Aside from incorporating it in the Student’s Orientation, the school can distribute leaflets and have a campaign project in the university by posting posters about Plagiarism, its bad effects and how they can avoid committing Plagiarism.

If the university has a website, they can put a special section on their website about Plagiarism where students can easily get information about it.

2. The faculty should give students enough time to do their work so the students will not cram and therefore will just opt to copy works on the Internet or to get services of companies offering thesis and essay writing.

The faculty should also schedule a periodic review of the students’ report and paper work so the faculty can check the progress of the student. This will also be a time for the faculty to discuss his observation on the style the student is using for his paper and the faculty can also give suggestions on how to improve the work and pointers on how to avoid plagiarism.

3. The faculty should also require a specific format for the paper that he is requiring his students. For example, students should use different sources for their work like book sources, journal sources, Internet, etc.

4. The school should also put an effort to discuss important principle on intellectual property right to their students so that the students will be aware too that there are some principles present that will allow them to use copyrighted materials so as not to impede the students to search for further knowledge when doing their research work.

One principle is the Principle of Fair Use. As defined in wikipedia.org,:

“Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as use for scholarship or review.

The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”

If the students are aware of their rights, they will not be impeded to do further research for their studies, at the same time, they will be able to avoid committing Plagiarism.

5. The Principle of Creative Commons can also be introduce to the students. As defined in Wikipedia:

“Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.”

This way, the students will have information on the options that they have in conducting their research work and paper and thus, students can explore using previous and existing knowledge in doing their research work without the fear that they might commit plagiarism and copyright infringement.

6. The university should also impose a strict disciplinary measure if students have been proven to be committing Plagiarism. Disciplinary measures like suspension or giving a penalty on the grades for submitted work that has been found to be plagiarize.

7. If the university can afford it, they can also employ plagiarism detection system where they can check the students’ submitted work against an electronic database of original and copyrighted contents.

Sources:

http://www.wikipedia.org

http://www.citejournal.org/vol1/iss4/currentpractice/article2.htm

Ethics in Information Technology by George Reynolds

Have you seen this website of Mark Reed where it lists different types of online personalities which he called flame warriors? Check out the site and see which type of flame warriors are you.

Flame Warriors by Mark Reed

If you were to ask me to choose which type of flame warrior I can relate to, this will be my choices:

1. Lurker does not participate in normal forum discourse, but he's out there...watching, reading every message. He is usually quite harmless, and more often than not his silence reflects a natural reticence rather than sinister motives. If a fight breaks out he will quietly observe to avoid revealing his position. Occasionally, however, some mysterious impulse drives him to de-lurk and attack. This totally unexpected assault is universally regarded as an ambush, and other Warriors will turn on him savagely. Lurker seldom sticks around to fight it out, however, and after a brief exchange, he once again slips out of sight.

I am a member of various yahoo groups but I can say that most of the times, I am just a lurker. I love reading other people’s points of views about different topics but sometimes, I don’t feel comfortable talking and sharing about how I think right away. I want to get to know the person (or in this case the group or the members of the discussion forum) really well first before I will be comfortable in sharing my views. So I will just follow all the flows of conversations and would really hesitate to speak out my mind right away.

I observe there are some members in our Yahoo groups that will reply and submit a post to almost all the topics being discussed in the forum. I am not like that. I will reply if only I find the topic really interesting and if only I am confident that what I will post will make sense and will not just waste the time of the other members of the forum. I guess, I am conscious with what I say and post in the discussion boards and I always think things through before I make a post. That is why, most of the time, I end up not posting anything at all and I will just stay as a silent observer.

2. Big Cat would rather not fight...he enjoys peacefully observing forum conversations and laconically participates when the moods strikes. He playfully chases interesting threads, and from time to time uses a Newbie or Propellerhead as a convenient scratching post. He enjoys being stroked or petted, and tends to purr loudly. CAUTION: Don't be fooled by his fuzzy, playful exterior. When provoked, Big Cat reacts with lightning speed and almost always lands on his feet after an attack. Big Cat often indulges himself by toying with his victim before delivering his lethal blows.

In a discussion forum, we can’t prevent that there will be misunderstandings and sometimes heated discussions. I experienced that a lot of times in the discussion forum where I am a member of. But like the Big Cat, I will prefer to just observe the conversation and will just be on the sidelines. I will read and follow the thread regarding the argument, but I will still prefer not to be on any side of the fence to avoid conflict. Thankfully, I haven’t experienced loosing my temper yet when provoked by other members of the forums.

One flame warrior that I encounter most of the time is the Nanny: tirelessly monitors forum discussions to make sure that everyone behaves. Though he is quick to admonish for off-topic messages and petty squabbling, he is generally slow to anger. Rather than wading into pitched battles, Nanny simply pulling the plug on combatants and bans repeat offenders.Weaker Warriors such as Innocence Abused, Weenie and Crybaby will run to Nanny for protection in the midst of battle.

In the yahoo groups where I belong to, we have a moderator who acts like our nanny. The moderator checks all the messages that are being posted in the forum and check to see if all the policies have been followed before the message will be approve for posting. The moderator also reminds us every now and then on the rules and policies when posting in the forum and the moderator also have the power to approve members and suspend members who constantly violates forum rules.

As defined by World Bank:

“E-Government refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses and the other arms of government.”

In my own definition, E-governance is the use of information and communication technology by the government to provide reliable, fast, and efficient services to its citizens.

Will e-governance help curb corruption? Yes, I think it can help lessen corruption but I don’t think it can totally eradicate it.

While I was doing some readings about E-governance in the Philippines, I realized that the implementation of E-government dates back to 1971 when the National Computer Center (NCC) was established and has been designated as the primary agency in the government with the responsibility of directing IT use for national development and rationalizing computerization in the country. [1] A number of our government agencies already have a website in place but most of them is geared towards information dissemination and does not really provide front-line services where citizens can obtain government services online without the need to deal personally with a government employee. That is why, corruption, bribery and red tape is still evident in most of our government agencies.

If only our e-government system can be enhance wherein an effective front-line e-government service is implemented where citizens can easily gain access to government services online like applying for a driver’s license or a passport or paying taxes, then corruption can be lessen.

I remember when we are processing the transfer of title for the house and lot that we bought; it took us more than five months to finally be able to transfer the land title to our name. Red tape is really evident in the different government agencies that we dealt with and there was even one staff from BIR who manage to casually offer faster processing if we pay the right amount (bribe).

In this scenario, our papers have been passed from one government agencies to the next (like BIR, Registry of Deeds, etc) where we have to deal with different government staff. If E-governance can provide for the integration of government agencies, then information can readily be accessed by the government agencies and citizens, thereby reducing the process flow which can therefore reduce bribery, corruption and red tape.

Also, if our E-government provides the public easy access to government processes and information, then all government transactions will be transparent to the public like bidding, budget, etc. This can help reduce corruption since the public can easily track any unlawful act that is being done by our government officials. Say for example, the ZTE scandal. If only the public can monitor the bidding process that any contractor must undergo before getting a contract from the government, then ZTE anomalies would have been avoided. Since the public can easily compare bids submitted by different contractors, our government officials would then think twice before they try to get kickbacks from the different projects or if they try to award the contract to a contractor whose contract price is way too much higher compared to other contractors.

I think, E-governance can just be use as a tool to help lessen corruption but not totally stop it because at the end of the day, it still boils down to the ethics and values that is being uphold by our government officials. No matter how powerful the tool is, no matter how sophisticated the technology used to implement E-government is, corruption, bureaucracy, and red tape will still be evident if our government officials will still prefer to be unethical just to keep their bank accounts loaded.

1. www.digitalphilippines.org

If the intent of the whistle blower is indeed pure (that he is not doing this out of revenge or out of money), then I admire his act. The act of whistle blowing is a serious matter as it may affect not only his life, but the life of the people around the whistle blower. To be able to sacrifice his life to reveal and correct something unethical and illegal is indeed admirable.

But have they proven to be effective as regards the system? Sadly, in the Philippine setting, I don’t think whistle blowing is effective. A recent example is the case of Navy Lt. Nancy Gadian where she revealed that there was a misuse of funds from the joint US-Phillipine Balikatan military exercises. Because of our corrupt government system, we can all predict what is going to happen with Gadian’s revelations – that it will all just go to waste as the accused will not be punished and this might just be forgotten after new issues surface.

But I think the effort of whistleblowers is still worth all their trouble. With their revelations, those doing illegal things might at least think twice before committing the same wrong doings again and at least he has fulfilled his duty as an individual to at least try to correct the unlawful act that he has witnessed by revealing it to the public.

Software development entails a lot of steps and processes and part of the steps that the company must take to develop highly reliable software is quality testing. Quality testing is a very important step in the software development because it helps organization detect bugs at the early stage of software development which can help them save on development expenses.

Programmers who wrote the program have the complete knowledge and background of the logic and the flow of the program so they are a good resource to use when conducting quality testing. They know what would be the required input and the required output for the software being developed so they can be the reliable person to conduct the unit, integration and system testing.

But programmers are still human and as much as they want to reduce errors in programs, they do unknowingly insert codes in the programs that they are writing that may cause errors in the software. Also, sometimes, they can be bias in testing the quality of the program that they have written. That is why if an organization can afford it, it would still be best to get an independent and separate team for quality testing. An independent team with a new perspective and is not bias, who can take a look at the program.

In my opinion, as long as the organization follows the standard software development methodology in developing a software, then quality testing done by programmers themselves is enough but this process is a strenuous job and requires more on numerous system tests as viewed in a different perspective. If the organization can afford to hire an external or separate team, then it is a plus for the organization since this will ensure that their software is being check by a different entity that can scrutinize the possible loopholes and advantages that can be exploited as compared to the knowledge of the developers.

Anonymity existed a long time already even without the presence of the Internet. If we will remember, during the Spanish period, Filipino writers who are protesting against the Spanish government like Jose Rizal and Marcelo H. Del Pilar have used pseudo names to hide their identity.

The Internet is a very powerful information channel since it offers a wider audience compared to other channels like print media. Some people, who use the Internet to disseminate information, even if their actions are ethically correct, prefer to remain anonymous. Here are some of the scenarios that I can think of where a person is acting ethically but still prefer to use anonymity:

1. Activist and leftist who are against the government may choose to remain anonymous while they express their political views and opinions against the government because disclosure of their identity might endanger their life.

If we go back in history, during the Marcos regime, Human rights groups placed the number of victims of extrajudicial killings under martial law at 1500 and over 800 abductions

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrajudicial_killings_and_forced_disappearances_in_the_Philippines#Marcos_regime). Even up to now that we are no longer under a dictatorship, political killings is still a big issue under Gloria-Macapagal Arroyo’s regime.

2. Another situation that I can think of is an employee who wishes to give the public information of the wrong doings of his employer. For example, an employee of an industrial company who uses chemicals to produce their products which is harmful to the environment would want to reveal this malpractice to inform the public and to stop the wrong doings of the company to save the environment. Since the revelation of the company’s malpractice will do more good than harm, then the employee’s act can still be considered as ethically correct but he might still prefer to remain anonymous for the fear of revenge from the company of he might even loose his job.

3. Another situation is when a person with a medical condition might choose to remain anonymous when that person posts his concern or question to an online discussion board because of embarrassment to admit to his medical condition.

Although I think, anonymity in the Internet is not really 100% as there are ways to trace an anonymous identity.

1. IP Address. Each computer connected on the Internet uses an IP address. ISPs have a log of all the activities in the Internet. So even though the PC uses dynamic IP addresses, the log can be check to determine the IP address and the Computer name used at a particular time at a particular day. Although a subpoena is still necessary to get these information from an ISP.

2. If the information is posted anonymously in a website, we can also trace the owner of the domain name for that website by using Internet tools like whois.

“WHOIS (who is) is the aptly named Internet function that allows one to query remote WHOIS databases for domain registration information. By performing a simple WHOIS search you can discover when and by whom a domain was registered, contact information, and more. A WHOIS search can also reveal the name or network mapped to a numerical IP address.”

(Source: http://www.wisegeek.com).

3. If the information was sent via email, the sender can be traced by the route information contained in the email header.

Some companies have employed technical experts to scan, test and hack their system in order to determine how to implement a secure infrastructure such as ethical hacking, penetration testing, integrity checkers, vulnerability scanning and many more. This is an effort with permission from management and the supervision of system administrators. Other than this, this is typically falls in the category of an illegal act which is hacking. But even if systems administrators are aware of the test being conducted on their systems, they will still test and scan their systems of the possible effects of the hacking test that they conducted to their network infrastructure or retrace that nothing was changed or added. And these cost time and money from the organization.

So is there such a thing as a harmless worm? In my opinion, my answer is no, because no matter how little the effect of the program, it still causes us disruption on our work such as the latest Obama worm which shows his face every week in your desktop not unless you really love the guy but to many who has been infected, would they want it too? It causes time and money especially when we’re cleaning up our systems. When a computer “worm” was coined in our society few decades ago, it has been labeled as a malware causing a bad effect to your system or systems around the world and stating it as harmless; we’ll be making another definition for it.

So even if the worms’ intention is harmless, it will still do damage to the network. The problem with worms is that it doesn’t need user’s intervention in order to spread; it spread and multiplies on its own. The damage created by the worm can be as little as using an organization’s bandwidth and resources but as little an effect as this will still cost the organization time and money and thus can be considered harmful.

Is every action that is legal also ethical? If I will base my answers on the four Philosophical theories, I should be able to say that anything that is legal is supposed to be ethical. Like if I will base my answer on the theories of Utilitarianism, then a legal action is ethical since the consequences of the legal action to the people directly or indirectly affected by the legal action is more favorable than unfavorable. But if we will think about it based on actual experiences, any legal action is not always ethical. Let us take for example slavery. There are some countries dating back to history and up to modern times where slavery is legal. If we will use the Fairness approach to judge this action, then we can say that slavery is ethically wrong because it does not treat all people the same.

The same is true if we are to ask if all ethical action is legal. For me, the answer here is also no. An action can be ethically correct as long as it conforms to the norms set by society as what they believe is right but it doesn’t always follow that it conforms to the regulations set by the law. Let us take for example one practical application. You run a traffic light and disobey traffic rules because you are in a hurry to rush your son to the hospital. This is illegal but is ethical because base on theories of Duty Ethics, we have a duty towards other people, and saving a person’s life is one of those duties.

So if I were to ask, what would be the more relevant guide for our actions, then I would say Legal (but this is with a premise that our government system is not corrupt). I can say that ethics laid the foundation for law but Ethics is bias as the decision if an action is ethically right or wrong is base on a lot of things like culture, religion, the people directly affected by the action, by virtues, and the like. There are a lot of factors to consider before you can come up with a non-debatable answer if an action is ethical or not. Whereas something legal is concrete, it is solid. The laws has been passed and enacted because it is for the good of the majority. The lawmakers have set the law for the people to follow and if you break the law, then it is illegal. A person can be force to follow what is legal but you cannot force a person to be ethical because that is a choice for the person to make and even if a person does not act ethically, then that person will not be sanctioned by the law.

Sometimes, it is a choice between right and right. But if I will be face with that dilemma, I think I would choose Legal.

Of What use is a Certification to me?

For me, getting a certification definitely will give any IT Professional an edge against those who are not certified. I admit that when I tried for my first certification, I have a thinking that it is for everybody and that it is just a money generating thing for Microsoft, Cisco, etc because anyone who spends time reading the Technical books can pass and be certified. But when I finished the test, I learned that he questions given are a true test of experience of an IT professional, something that you will be able to answer if you have a deeper knowledge of the subject matter and something that you won’t acquire from reading and memorizing text books.

Most if not all companies, have use this as a gauge to measure the experience and knowledge of IT Professionals which I think is a very good tool to use since those who are certified really deserve to be called one as they have devoted a lot of time and effort in obtaining that Certification.

Yes, you have to pay Microsoft or Cisco or CompTia or other companies in order to be acknowledge as an experienced and certified IT Professional of their products but I don’t think this is money generating. These big companies have dedicated a lot in order to get the reputation and prestige that they have now in the IT industry and of course, if they awarded somebody their certification, it means that they are allowing that person to be associated with the reputation that their company holds. And of course I believe that nothing in this world is free so it is just okay for me to pay if what I will be getting in exchange is the equal amount of respect as what this companies’ are getting once I get certified with them.

Currently, I am already holding 3 Microsoft certifications and I am still pursuing other certifications because I believe that getting certified is one of a good proof that I am trying my best to update my knowledge and be regarded as a credible IT Professional who really knows her craft.