MIRPUR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (MUST), MIRPUR

DEPARMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Professional Practices
HUM-4704

Lecture [1] : Introduction

Miss Mehreen Shakoor

(Lecturer)

Date: April 23, 2020

 COURSE DESCRIPTION

A foundational course in computer science that is:

Designed to familiarize students with professional practice in computer science, and

to enable them to:

 Identify ethical conflicts,

 Identify their responsibilities and options, and

 Think through the implications of possible solutions to ethical conflicts.

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 COURSE OBJECTIVES

Objective of this course are following:

 To make students aware of themselves as members of a profession, with shared community

principles.

 To make students aware of the ethical implications of their professional choices, and of the
communities (employer, customers, society at large) whose interests they serve.

 To make students aware of how they apply ethical principles to resolve situations that arise in their
professional lives.

 To make students aware of professional organizations that can help them deal with professional
issues.

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 COURSE SCHEDULE

Till Mid Term

Topic 1: Introduction to Ethics, Philosophies, regarding to Ethics and morals

Topic 2: Introduction to Computer and Cyber Ethics

Topic 3: Computer Ethics history. Sample Case Studies

Topic 4: Ten Commandments

Topic 5: Sample topics to study in this subject

Topics 6: Types of Ethics, Relationship of different types of ethics

Topic 7: Essential components of personal ethics, ACM code of conduct

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 COURSE SCHEDULE

After Mid Term

Topic 8: Definition of Cyber crime, general types of cyber crime, cyber crime statics

Topic 9: Types of Cyber crime technically specified by Australian institute of criminology

Topic 10: Management Hierarchy, IT organization structure, staff management, five golden rules of
staff management

Topic 11: Definition of team, team management, four C’s of team management,

Topic 12: Elements of healthy teams, way to inspire and motivate team, ethical issues in team
management.

Topics 13: Character of high performance teams

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 COURSE TEXTBOOKS

Book 1:

1. Bott, Frank, Allison Coleman, and Diane Rowland. Professional issues in

software engineering. CRC Press, 2000.

2. Deborah G. Johnson, “Computer Ethics”, Pearson Education (2001) 3rd

edition.

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 GRADING POLICY

Mid Term: [30%]

Quizzes: [5%]

Assignments: [5%]

Semester Project: [10%]

Final Exam: [50%]

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 HOMEWORK & ASSIGNMENT POLICY
Assignments:
 Each student needs to submit two assignments, on before midterm and one after midterm examinations in hard form
and also in soft form with plagiarism not more than 15% (references must be included at the end of each assignment).
 Assignment must need to upload on turnitin class for plagiarism checking. Otherwise hard form will not be
acceptable.
 Front page of assignment must be properly formatted with following information:
 Assignment title, Assignment No., Student Name, Student Roll no (properly formatted according to CMS), Session,
Subject Name, Subject Code, Plagiarism (%), Submission date, and Instructor Name.
 Late submission of assignments will not be entertained.
 Plagiarised Assignment will be marked zero

Quizzes:
 There will be unannounced quizzes randomly (before start of lecture / after lecture) and one announced quiz before
midterm and terminal examination.
 If any student would not be able to attend quiz, quiz will not be taken again.
All assignments and quizzes will be considered for grading

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Professional Practices
 Contents

• Profession
• Fundamental characteristics of a profession
• Structure of engineering profession
• Development of engineering profession
• Engineering profession in Pakistan
• Ethics and Software engineering
• Professional codes of conduct
• Applying codes of conduct

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 Profession

“A paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal
qualification”

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 Profession

• A formal education is one where you would go to a college or university for

an actual degree.
• An informal education is simply learning a trade from someone else. It’s
possible to have a formal education and an informal education.
• The formal education is what most employers would prefer to see because
it is easier to prove. Having a degree in a specific field will mean that
you have certain knowledge that will translate into a better paying job
and the company that’s employing you getting a qualified person for the job.

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 Profession
• An informal education is what many people end up having. You work under
someone who has a degree or has been doing it for enough years
to be knowledgeable about the subject.
• Many car mechanics and other "trade” skills usually have an informal
education as to what they’re doing.
• Informal education can also be referred to as life experience. After going
through life for so many years, you’ll naturally acquire some knowledge
about different things that you may not even learn after going through a formal
education.

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 Fundamental characteristics of a profession

• Great responsibility
– Professionals deal in matters of vital importance to their clients and are
therefore entrusted with grave responsibilities and obligations.
– Given these essential obligations, professional work typically
involves circumstances where carelessness, inadequate skill, or
breach of ethics would be significantly damaging to the client and/or his
fortunes.

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 Fundamental characteristics of a profession

• Accountability
– Professionals hold themselves ultimately accountable
for the quality of their work with the client.
– The profession may or may not have mechanisms in place to
reinforce and ensure adherence to this principle among its
members.

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 Fundamental characteristics of a profession

• Based on specialized, theoretical knowledge

– Professionals render specialized services based on theory,
knowledge, and skills that are characteristic to
their profession and generally beyond the understanding or
capability of those outside of the profession.
– Sometimes, this specialization will extend to access to the
tools and technologies used in the profession (e.g. medical
equipment).

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 Fundamental characteristics of a profession

• Institutional preparation
– Professions typically require a significant period of hands-on,
practical experience in the protected company of senior
members before candidates are recognized as professionals.
– After this provisional period, ongoing education toward
professional development is compulsory.

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 Fundamental characteristics of a profession

• Ethical constraints
– Due to the other characteristics on this list, there is a clear
requirement for ethical constraints in the professions.
– Professionals are bound to a code of conduct or ethics specific
to the distinct profession.
– Professionals also aim toward a general body of core values,
which are centered upon the client's benefit and best interests.

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 Fundamental characteristics of a profession

• Merit-based
– In a profession, members achieve employment and success based
on merit rather than on corrupted ideals such as social principle,
mandated support, or extortion.
– Therefore, a professional is one who must attract clients and
profits due to the merits of his work.
– In the absence of this characteristic, issues of responsibility,
accountability, and ethical constraints become irrelevant,
negating any otherwise- professional characteristics.

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 10 things that define a true professional
• Put customer satisfaction first
• Make expertise your specialty
• Do more than expected
• Do what you say and say what you can do
• Communicate effectively
• Follow exceptional guiding principles
• Praise your peers not yourself
• Share your knowledge
• Say thank you
• Keep a smile on your face and the right attitude in your heart

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 Structure of engineering profession

• The engineering profession has a two tier structure.

• At the first level, there are the engineering institutions, that is, the
chartered professional bodies, each of which covers a single or
several closely related engineering disciplines. Examples are PIEAS, NUST, UET
etc.

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 Structure of engineering profession

• The second level body in engineering is the engineering council, a

chartered body which recognizes certain engineering institutions as its
nominated bodies.
• Engineering council is satisfied that their standards of membership meet its
requirements.

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 Structure of engineering profession
• Engineering council acts as an umbrella body and represents the interests
of the engineering profession as a whole.
• Pakistan Engineering Council is a professional body and constitutional
federal institution for accreditation of engineering education and
regulation of engineering profession in Pakistan.
• PEC is founded on January 10, 1976 and its parent organization is
“Ministry of Science and Technology”.

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 Development of engineering profession

• The term engineer was first used in the sense of a military engineer
concerned with military constructions.
• The term civil engineer was first used in 18th century to distinguish
engineers who were concerned with civil construction.

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 Development of engineering profession

• First formal groupings of engineers also began to appear in 18th century.

• First group of civil engineers was founded in Paris in 1716.
• The first computer related organization “British Computer Society”
was founded in 1957.

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 Development of engineering profession

• Large number of engineering institutions make it difficult for the engineering

profession to formulate.
• To address this issue, 13 of the largest chartered institutions began a
long process of negotiation which led, in 1962, to the formation of the
“Engineering institutions joint council”.

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 Development of engineering profession

• Tworecent professional engineering societies of ultimate

reputation are ACM and IEEE.
• ACM stands for Association for Computing Machinery.
• IEEE stands for Institution of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers.

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 Development of engineering profession
• Both ACM and IEEE-Computer Society publish a range of journals covering
theory and practice in all aspects of IT.
• These academic and professional publications are the most prestigious and the
most widely read in the field.
• IEEE Computer Society and ACM collaborate extensively on matters
connected with the software engineering profession.
• Together they have produced the software engineering code of ethics, that is
the main code of conduct for software engineers.

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 Engineering Profession in Pakistan

• Engineering is one of the best career options with the most stability for the
youth in Pakistan.
• Major factor on the list of most young Pakistani graduates is having a job
abroad. In that regard, engineering is a clear winner by a long shot.
• Even in Pakistan engineering field offers a relatively better standing
both professionally and economically.

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 Engineering Profession in Pakistan

• The position of software engineering

– SW Engineering is an engineering discipline that is concerned
• with all aspects of software production.
– Pakistan is included amongst one of those countries which have highest demand for
software engineers at the moment because of the advancement of IT and its
applications.
– In the passage of time ranging from the last decade Pakistan has created a wide
market and growth in the software engineering department including both private
and government sectors.

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 Engineering Profession in Pakistan

• The position of software engineering

– In coming future it will also become one of the main
• branches of engineering like civil and mechanical.
– With software pervading virtually all aspects of our work in our society, a
software Engineering graduate has the option to work in many
different sectors such as telecommunications, finance, health care,
manufacturing, retailing, security, transport.
– Other engineering areas like aeronautical, automotive, building,
electrical, etc. also have increasing needs for software engineering.
– The entertainment industry with video games and movie animation also
has a large demand for Software Engineers.

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 Ethics and software engineering

• Ethics is the study of right and wrong in relation to

human actions. It includes
– Meta-ethics: study of general principles from which ethical
systems can be built.
– Moral theory: ethical systems, consisting of the criteria to
decide whether individual actions are right and wrong.
– Practical ethics: application of ethical systems to the analysis of
particular situations.

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 What is Professional Ethics

• One's conduct of behavior and practice when carrying out professional

work, e.g., consulting, researching, teaching.
• The principles and standards that guide members of a particular
profession in their interactions with internal & external
stakeholders.

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 Professional Ethics

• „Professional Ethics must take into accounts:

– Relations between professionals and clients
– Relation between profession and society
– Relations among professionals
– Relations between employee and employer
– Specialized technical details of the profession
– „A computing professional must understand;
• Cultural, social, legal, and ethical issues in computing
• Responsibility and possible consequences of failure

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 Why professional ethics?

• Awareness of professional ethics is gaining importance with

time.
• Decision making process in the work place is a complex phenomena.
• The professional ethics provide a way of simplifying that
decision making process.

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 Ethical Issues in Software Engineering
• As software becomes pervasive in our daily lives, its values from a purely
human perspective are brought to light.
• Ethical conduct is one such human value.
• By participating in a software development process, software engineers
can influence the final product, namely the software itself, in different
ways including those that may be contrary to public interest.
• In other words, they could engage in an unethical behavior, intentionally or un-
intentionally.

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 Ethical Issues in Software Engineering
• A number of aspects regarding software engineering ethics are
– The types of harms the public can suffer as result of this work
– How software engineers contribute to the good life for others
– Who exactly are the ‘public’ to whom the engineer is obligated
– Why the software engineer is obligated to protect the public
– What other ethical obligations software engineers are under
– What are the professional codes of software engineering ethics

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 Professional code of conduct
• One of main characteristic of profession is that the professional body
establishes and enforces a code of conduct on its members.
• As far as software engineering is concerned, most code of conducts established
by ACM and IEEE undergo major revisions with the passage of time.
• All previous code of conducts are recently replaced by “Software
Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice” developed jointly by
the ACM and IEEE Computer society.

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 Professional code of conduct

• It outlines 8 principles of software engineering ethics: The

obligation of the software engineer to the
– general public
– the client and employer
– the product
– the profession
– Colleagues
– the engineer himself or herself
– the ethical management of software engineering projects.

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 Applying codes of conduct

• This section provides some examples based on real

situations regarding professional practices in software
engineering.
– Sales proposals
– Integrity and professional status.
– Public health and safety
– Conflicts of interest

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THANKS