Computing Academics’ Perceived Level of Awareness and Exposure to Software Engineering Code of Ethics: A Case Study of a South African University of Technology

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Abstract

The need for awareness on ethical computing is increasingly becoming important. As a result this challenges all stakeholders in the software engineering profession, including educators, to improve their efforts on the awareness of professional codes of ethics which provide framework for ethical reference. However, the several compromises in the software engineering practice suggest that there are some in the profession, who are not familiar with the profession’s codes of ethics and subsequently not able to practice and teach students about them. This research work investigates the extent of codes of ethics awareness by practitioners who are teaching software development courses in an academic environment. An online questionnaire with indicators for measuring awareness on software engineering code of ethics was deployed and responded to by 44 educators. Graphical, univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted on the data to determine the profile of the respondents and the extent of their level of awareness on the codes of ethics. The results indicate that majority of the lecturers (54.5 %) are not aware of software engineering codes of ethics, and those who are aware, majority of them were exposed to through self-study or personal development. Furthermore, the inclusion of codes of ethics in the learning activities is minimal as inhibited by lack of awareness and failure to apply the codes practically. This study recommends that lecturing staff as part of the professional software engineers serving as academic corps, should be placed on programmes for exposing them to professional software engineering codes of ethics. Moreover, the study calls for accreditation of software engineering courses, as it is the case with other professional engineering disciplines, to improve awareness and subsequent practical application of the codes of ethics.

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