There is an interesting article in NEXT this week in the Sydney Morning Herald titled, Look out for the butterflies by John Lenarcic. The article comments on professional responsibility, privacy, access to technology, social consequences and computer ethics in IT, and comments that in higher education Ethics is the only field in which students are compelled to formulate and defend their opinions on public issues. The article suggests that perhaps students should be given greater freedom to formulate their opinions within other disciplines of IT.
IT in academic institutions has become a blinkered monoculture in need of an injection of humanity. … Technical material is often disseminated with little regard to historical and cultural context, as if it is value-free. Students of IT should not simply accept what they are given.
Excerpt: Lenarcic, J. (2003). Look out for the butterflies [Online] Available: http://www.smh.com.au (Cited: 16 April 2003)
John Lenarcic is a lecturer at RMIT School of Business Information Technology.