Reflective Learning of Professional Issues in Information Technology - Assignment Example

Student’s name Institution Course Professor Date Reflective learning of professional issues in IT Part A Compulsory Section 1 During my initial stages when I chose to enroll in a degree in ICT sector I was excited and had not seen the big picture in the opportunities the course could open for me. Information technology is a very important sector that has been growing over time, this together with the excitement to be in campus were my motivations initially. I have had a predilection to ICT for quite a long time and also with influence from my parents, schoolmates and peers. Endorsement by my parents and my friends made me own it and pursue it with devotion. When discussing issues with any parties more often than not the ICT sector featured and has kept me motivated to achieve my dreams. When enrolling for PIIT, I expected it to be a lecture that was geared to equipping us with skills and knowledge related to our goals. For me, it was no different from the other units and lectures. The expectations I had were small and I did not have much drive within me or pull from any aspect of the studies. However, I could not see this coming as the unit has been a real eye opener for me. The scope of career opportunities in IT is just amazing since my view was rather myopic and restricted. The range of careers, the multiple employers both in corporate and non corporate world and preparation for these careers all the left me in awe as I have noted the myriad of opportunities that are at our disposal in the ICT. In no other time have I been more confident, inspired and optimistic in my career path. Having learnt the issues such as professionalism, communication, legal and ethical aspects among others; I have more drive to explore my career to deepest canyons and make impact in the industry. The PIIT came just in the right time and season as all issues brought out have given me a sense of direction and I can now make informed choices. The wide scope of opportunities means that no restrictions in terms of choice and the sectors to work in such as business, health, education and banking just to mention a few. The interactions and quality of output in any duty performed is also an important aspect in marketing oneself and being strategically placed in the sector. Moreover, the nature of interpersonal skills has a positive influence in addition to technical knowhow. The impact of ICT in social, economic and other aspects of our daily lives is great making this a key aspect of our livelihoods. Section 2 ICT professionals work with many people and in diverse set ups. Interpersonal skills are a very crucial trait to build and maintain cordial relationships when performing these duties. Flexibility is also a trait required of professionals to meet the dynamic ICT challenges. This allows one to be responsive to different work environments such as pressure and stresses and the diverse situations that are bound to happen. Clients and colleagues have different behaviors and variation in the different work environments, good listening skills allows ease of interaction and working. This will be well handled by a flexible person. To work in ICT involves various players who are part of a team. Collaboration is needed to have the different groups having diverse backgrounds to work together. This requires a cooperative behaviour that enables one to work with others without being a hindrance to the realization of the purpose of the team. Determination to face the dynamism and progress in face of adversity in pursuit of the goals and expectations is also important. For a professional, technical competence in one’s area of work and perseverance also forms a good behavior pattern for an ICT professional to succeed. Working as a group is very exciting. Apart from learning during this process, we were tasked with a group reporting and a group presentation among other tasks. During this entire process I actively participated in conducting self research to enable me actively discuss and critique during the sessions. In a group sometimes our discussion could take a tangent and more often I took the task of steering us towards the course. My being patient was a great tool for the team, I have never been too patient to sit for some time and discuss issues. I learnt this virtue which was a value to our group. Our performance was not optimal and could have improved by giving all members a chance to ask questions. The approach was based on individual willingness. I believe team members would have asked more questions and demonstrate other points of view. Though there was tendency towards seriousness of the tasks we had, allowing some humor would also have kept the team members balanced and make the whole exercise full of fun. If we had asked more questions, had more patience and were open to each other more, then our team would have done better since there is a large possibility that some of us did not fully exhaust what they had. Never the less, it was a great learning process in all aspects. Others Section 3 Australian Council of Professions 2014, defines a profession as “…a disciplined group of individuals who adhere to ethical standards and who hold themselves out as, and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills in a widely recognized body of learning derived from research, education and training at a high level, and who are prepared to apply this knowledge and exercise these skills in the interest of others.” The roles and responsibilities of a modern ICT professional are varied and depend on the level of competence. The Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) provides a description of the range of ICT activities, identifying the attributes needed to perform the tasks and gives seven levels of responsibilities. The generic skills required include aautonomy, influence, and complexity and business skills. Based on this approach the roles include providing advice and guidance through consultancy services for technical areas of specialization. They also take part in information strategy such as corporate governance issues, information analysis, security, policy issues and other aspects of information management. The ICT professionals also have a role to conduct research and are also involved in innovation in the sector. These professionals are also required to maintain competency standards during execution of their tasks and also take part in mentoring and facilitative training to nurture those who are young in the profession. Service management is also another role which entails IT management in financial aspect, service design and operations such as systems software management, network control and service operation among others. The range of responsibilities depends on the level competence and training. Those up in the hierarchy are involved more in the managerial aspects and policy formulation and implementation while those lower in the scale are more involved with the technical aspects. These professionals also take part in business aspects such as programme and project management, Business analysis, planning and management among others. Sales and marketing is also activity that is performed by IT professionals. It is important to understand the scope of responsibilities as they will inform the handling of duties when working and at the varied levels of responsibilities. Choice of specific areas based on my preferences will be informed by understanding this. It is also worth to understand this to seek the necessary competence and training to get the aspired jobs. Section 4 The general understanding of ICT and my perception of this sector has significantly been influenced by this unit. ICT has a lot of work in the various sectors from where one can choose to work in. The various interests for most people can be catered for hence there are no restrictions in terms of the sectors one wants to work in. I had no prior knowledge on the diversity that ICT holds. This means the ICT professionals have to be all rounded and flexible to fit into this. I previously thought of ICT by conceptualizing its activity revolving around a computer and its technical aspects. It is now very clear to me that there are various levels involved for which the roles and responsibilities are change from the highest policy making stage to the lowest where one works under supervision. Acquisition of knowledge and skills is an essential process of professionalism and helps career progression, hardly had I thought of this and I expected to be competent enough upon graduation. This was a fallacy. Teamwork, guidelines, ethics and law were nowhere in my vocabulary. I thought of an ICT expert as an all knowing with hardly little to ask. This was challenged when I learnt that team work is a very crucial to achieve goals and to grow. Actually, the unit served as an eye opener to me that many things remain to be learnt out of the scope of lecture and other class related activities. Legal aspects and ethics have to be observed in carrying out most activities. When doing something the train of thoughts has to encompass many spheres and not only oriented towards the technical aspects. I cannot deny the fact that the enormous information almost threatened me to believe the misconception that ICT courses are hard. Having to deal with the various issues and guidelines seemed to me that these professionals have a lot of workload. This may be true in some way but the excitement and opportunities present in this area is significantly large to counter the fear. Other fears arising from ethical dilemmas and how to maneuver within the thin lines separating law, ethics and rights cannot be understated. It is in order to recognize that my ignorance has waned, I have recognized my spectrum of opportunities increase, and my interpersonal skills from group work have become better. In addition, I have recognized the expected behaviour, competencies, roles and responsibilities as well as the limits within which to operate. This is to confirm that I have benefited a lot and I am more motivated. Part B Communication For ICT professionals, communication is a very important aspect for effective working as it influences interactions and activities carried out when performing tasks. As the name ‘Information and communication’ in ICT suggests, it means that for information to be conveyed as desired communication has to be right at all times. In this regard it is important to understand that communication is a complex social activity and meaning should be obtained during interactions and avoid assumptions. Consideration of social, cultural and temporal context is important in all these. Communication is a key pillar in this sector that we as upcoming professionals must get it clear for better practice. As Whalen (2007) clearly articulates, there is need to attempt to understand others while communicating. This allows working with others and appreciates their behaviors and different forms of language in various contexts. This gives an understanding of these people and wins their confidence creating a good environment for working. Though ICT professionals should understanding of others, I find it a sided view as both parties should seek to understand each other. Be it clients or colleagues, for a mutual and healthy interaction both parties must respond appropriately to allow effective communication. Communication can be hampered by assumptions that restrict us from considering our differences in terms of perception and understanding. Individual and social constructions vary and hence the significance of a worldview that helps to appreciate other peoples’ perceptions, feelings, thoughts which can be masked by assumptions (Whalen, 2007). This raises the importance of understanding language, observing non verbal cues and seeking clarification where there is no clear understanding. I now understand the importance for a professional to attempt to have an objective view of the clients’ perceptions and experiences as they affect our attitudes and the impact on them. Communication should not be vague and explanations and clarifications have to be made for each issue to facilitate interactions. More thoughts are provoked regarding how we should even communicate technical aspects which need tailoring the language in lay manner for better understanding. In as much as I think I have had a lot of assumptions before, I feel the clients too must be responsive in a similar manner to allow good communication since it takes both the source and recipient to achieve this. Ethics Ethics is the study of philosophical beliefs about what is considered right or wrong in society while law is the system of rules of conduct established by the government of a society to maintain stability and justice. Both law and ethics guide the conduct of ICT professionals in everyday activity and also helps solving issues. Ethics are applicable from the straight forward issues to areas of uncertainty where perspectives are totally different. Cyberethics deals with moral, legal, and social issues in ICT playing a critical role in decision making. Various ethical concepts and principles exist which all try to balance and define the right and wrong in various contexts (Bowern, et al, 2006). From influencing decisions, organizational behaviour is also dependent on ethics. Ethical standards are set which guides the conduct of individuals, this serves to prevent unwanted conduct such as harassment, fraud, conflicts of interest, corruption among other vices. The business integrity as well as the interests of investors and owners is maintained by ethical values. Various stakeholders may have different views on what is ethical or unethical based on their religious, social, economic, cultural and age differences. Some may be easy to agree on but others cause a significant stalemate hence showing the variation from simple to complex issues can be. In ICT issues some of the issues arising include privacy of information and access to data, information transfer, matching across databases and piracy among others. Though legal provisions exist for a majority of these, ethical issues still crisscross into these areas. With the rapid increase in use of social sites there are a myriad of issues arising regarding the extent of restrictions and safety in these sites. Such issues carry significance to businesses that depend on these and also to those who are in ICT sector as their main business. I have understood the significance of ethics in ICT however it can also impact negatively by giving unnecessary restrictions especially when parties involved have limited facts or base their issues on subjective convictions such as religion or culture. The articulation of these issues to young and aspiring professionals in ICT like us has come at the right time to allow us get an understanding of this as we prepare face more issues ahead since what we have appears to be just a tip of iceberg as ICT is vast and wide. Though fear of dilemmas exists I am now able to think in a broader manner when dealing with anything to ensure I am in line with legal and ethical parameters applicable. Privacy Privacy is the freedom from interference regarding personal matters. It is a human right according to Article 12 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this sense, information privacy is important for ICT professionals to understand how government agencies and organizations handle personal information such as bio-demographic, health and social information. Individuals vary on how they regard their privacy and the impact of and individual can impact a whole organization or industry. The Privacy Act (1988) and 10 National privacy principles in our set up provide guidelines and regulations on how your personal information is handled. This includes collection, uses, access, accuracy, safe storage to personal information. The globe has been reduced to a small village by internet connection posing a serious challenge to security and privacy of information as many avenues to misuse exist owing to such exposure. We in ICT have to understand the need of privacy, the existing legal aspects and our roles and responsibilities. This has been an important issue that I must also admit, has been intellectually stimulating. With the information sharing are the challenges above and the task is when to restrict access information, criteria to use, and the nature of information to share to government, companies and through the internet. We need to know our duties and responsibilities in these aspects. Though challenges exist, sharing of information electronically means that better service provision to the people can during various situations. This requires a high degree of judgment and understanding to meet the expectations of parties involved as this have far reaching implications at individual and organization level. I believe therefore that all of us have a role in safeguarding privacy from the individuals who must what not to share, to ICT professionals who are the gate keepers and at interface between individuals and the exterior and the government arms which enforce and decide what is relevant to be used in certain situations in concurrence with ideas of Stoodley et al, 2010. Privacy raises both legal and ethical issues which can present with dilemma in some instances. I believe the unit gives us the basics of how to handle such issues and also opens our minds to engage and explore into areas of contention and even challenge the existing guidelines and offer better ideas when we can. Professionalism From the issues discussed above, it is very clear that there is a level of competence that each person should fulfill in order to handle them given the wide dimensions and depth of issues that face the professionals. The expectation of most of us is to have such competencies upon graduating which is not the truth in most cases against the expectations of the public and our clients. It is through various processes from education and training, mentoring and guidance and support by regulatory and professional bodies that the demands of this sector can be met. It is very clear that learning primes us into what we should expect but not our common notion that all technical aspects we have make us out right professionals (Bowern et al, 2006). This is a big disparity between reality and expectation that will at least make me better. The different sectors and levels of responsibilities that exist is a rather step wise process through which we learn to embrace more duties as we learn to handle them. Learning the communication skills, ethical and legal aspects among other principles that guide ICT operations is important in addition to the knowledge that we acquire from our lectures. I am now able to take a critical look of issues from all angles considering the many factors which may be involved in causation or dealing with them. More often than not, I had a simple, casual and myopic approach to most of these issues oblivious considerations and implications that are associated with them. Mentoring is an important process that already established professionals should use it to instill the ICT etiquette and skills as well as inspire upcoming groups to take the course and make ICT professionalism to the expected standards. This is however not well practiced and should be started at early stages of career development. The unit has been instrumental in bringing out important issues in ICT and also evoking thoughts that encourage self learning geared towards developing in depth knowledge and continuous professional development. References Australian Council of Professions (ACP). 2014. Retrieved 11th February 2014 from Bowern, M., Burmeister, O., Gotterbarn, D., & Weckert, J. 2007. ICT Integrity: bringing the ACS code of ethics up to date. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 13(2). Grodzinsky, F. S. 2000. The development of the'ethical'ICT professional: and the vision of an ethical on-line society: how far have we come and where are we going?. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 30(1), 3-7. Johnson, D. 2001. Computer Ethics. Prentice Hall, NJ: Englewood Cliffs. Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). 2014. Retrieved 2nd February 2014 from Stoodley, I., Bruce, C., & Edwards, S. 2010. Expanding ethical vistas of IT professionals. Information Systems Frontiers, 12(4), 379-387. United Nations 1948. 2014. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Retrieved 11th February 2014 from Whalen J. D., 2007. The professional communications, Toolkit. 2nd Edition. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Read More