Editor's Note: Just Plain Unethical

Computerworld - Several weeks ago, I wrote about my encounter with Frank Abagnale, the famed former con artist whose life story was depicted in the book and movie Catch Me If You Can. I noted that Abagnale blamed the failure of schools and universities to incorporate ethics into their curricula for the pervasiveness of illicit computer-related activity among young people.

That charge raised the hackles of professor emeritus David Rine, founding chair of computer sciences at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who stressed that the failure isnt a blanket one.

I would like to point out to you that some of us have been working on this issue since the mid-1980s, Rine wrote in an e-mail. We now have four computer- and IT-related undergraduate majors, [all of which] require a set of courses in the study of computer and IT ethics. ... So we have been addressing this need now for over 20 years.

Rine explained that since ABET, the organization that accredits engineering and technology education, requires ethics coursework in computer and IT programs, George Mason has been working with other universities to promote the inclusion of ethics in IT curricula. Sadly, Rine wrote, not all computer and IT academic programs are pursuing ABET accreditation or requiring coursework in ethics.

That the demand for ABET accreditation of IT curricula isnt stronger is sad, indeed. According to a survey of undergraduate computer science faculty chairs by Carol Lee Spradling of the University of Nebraska this year, an impressive 87.6% of the 251 respondents said their programs include ethics. The problem is that less than half of those respondents  48.2%  gave ABET accreditation as a reason for including it. The top reason was simply the institutional belief that social and professional ethics should be incorporated into the undergraduate computer science curricula.

But just what constitutes incorporation of ethics into a computer science or IT program?

Michael Quinn, dean of the College of Science and Engineering at Seattle University, conducted a study on the teaching of computer ethics last year, when he was a faculty member at Oregon State University. Quinn surveyed 50 of the approximately 200 colleges and universities in the U.S. whose computer science programs are accredited by ABET, to determine how they meet its requirements.

Quinn found that 55% of the surveyed departments require computer science majors to take an ethics course thats taught within the computer science department. Thirty percent said they incorporate discussions of ethical issues within other computer science courses. The remaining 15% said they require students to take an ethics course taught by another department, such as philosophy.