Ethics Document
Created:
Printed:
Last Edited:
1/14/2002 10:15 PM by David Kozlowski
2/15/2016 5:21:00 PM
2/15/2016 5:21:00 PM by David Kozlowski
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ 1
Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Ethical Code .................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Contribute to Society and Human Well-being ............................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Avoid Harm to Others .................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Be Honest and Trustworthy ......................................................................................................... 1
Honor Property Rights ................................................................................................................. 2
Give Proper Credit for Intellectual Property ................................................................................ 2
Respect the Privacy of Others .................................................................................................... 2
Strive to Attain the Highest Quality ............................................................................................. 2
Acquire and Maintain Professional Competence ........................................................................ 2
Accept and Provide Appropriate Professional Review ................................................................ 2
Honor Contracts, Agreements, and Assigned Responsibilities .................................................. 2
Give Comprehensive and Thorough Evaluations of Computer Systems .................................... 2
Introduction
The Roundabout Rebels strive to adhere to the ethics of the ACM. This document will
specifically address those areas that pertain directly to our project and are areas that we wish to
specifically emphasize their importance.
Ethical Code
Below will be the areas that we wish to elaborate.
Contribute to Society and Human Well-being
Our project will contribute to society by providing Traffic Engineers with a method of
automating some of their research. With this system, they will have more time to perform other
responsibilities as opposed to viewing the videotape footage for many long hours.
Avoid Harm to Others
Since our project is based upon gathering and evaluating data that will be used for
determining the safety of roundabouts, we must strive to ensure that none of the data is
generated falsely. While never intentional, errors may occur and since the data will have real
world importance, we will strive to minimize that number while increasing the efficiency as much
as possible.
Be Honest and Trustworthy
As a team, we must be honest to each other as to the quality of work we are performing.
Without honest, we will have little trust. Without trust, our team will fall apart. We must also be
honest to our client. He has contracted us to develop a system for him and we must be true to
that request. In developing an honest system, we must be honest to ourselves and realize that
this project is important and that no one can afford to bluff during its development. We must also
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be honest when documenting the system as to its abilities and also its limitations. This honesty
will provide a greater chance of avoiding harm to others.
Honor Property Rights Including Copyrights and Patents
“Violation of copyrights, patents, trade secrets and the terms of license agreements is
prohibited by law in most circumstances.” This code should never be broken and since our project
may be a marketable product, we will be very careful to ensure that we do not violate any of the
copyright or patent agreements on any of the tools we are using. We will also be sure to
document any tools or anything not our own that we use in the projects development.
Give Proper Credit for Intellectual Property
We will not take credit for anyone else’s work. We will give credit to any tools or ideas we
use during the development of the project. We will also give credit to each other for his
contribution to the team.
Respect the Privacy of Others
We will respect the privacy of others and no involve any personal data of ours nor of the
user or of any company not involved with the projects development.
Strive to Achieve the Highest Quality, Effectiveness and Dignity in both the
Process and Products of Professional Work
We are striving to reach as high of an efficiency and quality for this system as possible.
Our goal is to equal the engineers quality of manual data gathering and our hope is to exceed this
quality.
Acquire and Maintain Professional Competence
During the development of the system, we are finding it necessary to research and learn
new skills to complete this project. As such, we are growing in our field and in our competence.
We are striving to utilize all our skills to create this system.
Accept and Provide Appropriate Professional Review
During the development of the project, we look forward to reviews by our peers and
indeed welcome such reviews whether it is from students or from educators or professionals in
any engineering field. The review and feedback we receive will enhance the development of the
system.
Honor Contracts, Agreements, and Assigned Responsibilities
We will honor our contracts and agreements which have been put forth in the past as well
as those we will make in the future of this project. It is important to take the responsibility for our
work and our agreements and we will strive to accomplish all that we promise.
Give Comprehensive and Thorough Evaluations of Computer Systems and
Their Impacts, Including Analysis of Possible Risks
We will give a detailed description of the limitations of the system to the client and it will
be documented in the users manual as to what can be accomplished by the system at its
completion. We will also provide documentation that demonstrates the efficiency and quality of
the system. This way, all factors of the system is known to our client before it is used.
Revision History
V 1.00, D Kozlowski, 1-14-02 – Created initial draft of ethics document.
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