Chapter One Summary

Information technology is introducing changes for which laws and rules of acceptable conduct have not yet been developed. The main ethical, social, and political issues raised by information systems center around information rights and obligations, property rights and obligations, accountability and control, system quality, and quality of life. Conduct six ethical principles for judging the Golden Rule, Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, exchange of Descartes' rule, utilitarian Policy, Risk Aversion and ethical principles "no free lunch" There are rules. These principles should be used in conjunction with an ethical analysis. Data flowing over the Internet can be monitored at many points. Cookies and other Web monitoring tools closely track the activities of Website visitors. Traditional copyright laws are insufficient to protect against software piracy because digital material can be copied so easily and transmitted to many different locations simultaneously over the Internet. Poor data quality is also responsible for disruptions and losses for businesses. Poor data quality is also responsible for disruptions and losses for businesses. Jobs can be lost when computers replace workers or tasks become unnecessary in reengineered business processes. The ability to own and use a computer may be exacerbating socioeconomic disparities among different racial groups and social classes Computers can also create health problems, such as RSI, computer vision syndrome, and techno stress. In general, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to hold software producers liable for their software products that are considered to be like books, regardless of the physical or economic harm that results. Telephone systems have not been held liable for the messages transmitted because they are regulated common carriers. In return for their right to provide telephone service, they must provide access to all, at reasonable rates, and achieve acceptable reliability. Individual firms like AOL, Yahoo!, and Google have recently adopted policies on their own in an effort to address public concern about tracking people online. These basic concepts form the underpinning of an ethical analysis of information systems and those who manage them. First, information technologies are filtered through social institutions, organizations, and individuals. Systems do not have impacts by themselves.

Chapter Six Summary

An entity is a person, place, thing, or event on which we store and maintain information. Each characteristic or quality describing a particular entity is called an attribute. In most organizations, systems tended to grow independently without a company-wide plan. Accounting, finance, manufacturing, human resources, and sales and marketing all developed their own systems and data files. Data redundancy occurs when different groups in an organization independently collect the same piece of data and stores it independently of each other. In a traditional file environment, any change in a software program could require a change in the data accessed by that program. One program might be modified from a five-digit to a ninedigit ZIP code. If the original data file were changed from five-digit to nine-digit ZIP codes, then other programs that required the five-digit ZIP code would no longer work properly. Such changes could cost millions of dollars to implement properly.