CONFIDENTIAL



Confidential

For Your Eyes Only!

ETHICS QUIZ

Directions: The following “Ethic Quiz” will ask you questions about your current or future behaviors. Answer honestly. You are the only one to see the answers. These are “food for thought” questions.

DO NOT TURN THIS QUESTIONNAIRE IN!

|Would you ever. . . |Yes |No |

|Lie to parent about where you are going or where you have been? | | |

|Blame a friend or classmate for a mistake you made? | | |

|Copy a friend’s homework? | | |

|Deliberately hurt, embarrass or ridicule a classmate? | | |

|Stay home from school to complete a project that was assigned two weeks ago? | | |

|Lie about why you are late to class? | | |

|Sign your parent’s name on a test or progress report to avoid a confrontation about your grades? | | |

|Login to a computer as your friend and then complete his/her assignment? | | |

|Not return change to a salesperson that gave you more than you were due? | | |

|Cheat at a game or contest in order to boost your score? | | |

|Claim to have turned in an assignment when you know you did not? | | |

|Not report someone you see stealing or cheating on a test? | | |

|Betray a friend’s confidence by telling others his/her secrets? | | |

|Deliberately throw or leave paper or trash on the floor or ground? | | |

|Damage someone’s property (ex: computer) and then not admit to it? | | |

|Ask a friend to tell you test questions? | | |

|Copy and use software on your computer that you did not purchase? | | |

|Not report someone who is picking on another student? | | |

|Pretend to be sick at school when you were not? | | |

|Spray graffiti on a building or write a message on the bathroom stall/or school desk? | | |

|Download a music file, such as mp3, from the Internet that you do not purchase or is not being given away? | | |

Personal Ethics

Life is full of choices. There is an old saying: “What is popular is not always right; what is right is not always popular.” We do not always make the right choices or do the right thing. Mistakes are a normal part of living and to be expected. However, we can avoid some mistakes if we take the time to identify our personal values and ethics.

What are values?

Values are attitudes and beliefs about things we think are important in life.

What are ethics?

Ethics are the rules of personal behavior accepted by society. In other words, what is considered right or wrong.

Ethics are also known as a “code of conduct.” Personal values contribute to our ethics with positive behaviors and positive attitudes.

Activity 1

What are some values and factors (things and people) that influence our decision between what we consider right and wrong?

For example – your peers and friends’ opinions are important factor in influencing what you consider right or wrong.

1. _____________________________

2. _____________________________

3. _____________________________

4. _____________________________

5. _____________________________

Ethical Issues in the Age of Information Technology

• Computers have become a major part of our lives at home, at school, and at work.

• The computer and information technology revolution has brought many benefits to society. Computers allow us to collect, process, share, and store information quicker and more effectively.

• However, as we saw in the movies, it also can make it easier for some unscrupulous individuals and criminals to do harm – ex. cybercrime – stealing, corrupting or falsifying information, invasion of privacy…

• In fact, schools, workplaces, and governments are concerned about individual computer ethics.

• As a result, in the workplace, and in schools, computer use is being monitored. Software programs have been developed that allow authorities to watch what we do at our computers. These programs monitor information typed into a computer, e-mails received and sent, Internet use and web sites visited. It is perfectly legal for a school or employer to watch what you are doing at the computer. The computer belongs to the school or business and therefore they want to ensure it is used legally, appropriately, and more importantly focused on assigned and work-related tasks.

Activity 2

Is it Sharing or Stealing?

There are P2P (peer to peer) file sharing programs (ex. BitTorrent and Kodi) that allow you to share and/or stream music and video files.

.

Working in pairs, brainstorm and come up with arguments for – “sharing and not paying for music files” or “not sharing and paying for music CD’s/DVD’s or legal downloads (eg. Itunes)”. Provide the top 3 reasons, for and against sharing, and list them below.

|Reasons for Sharing |Reasons for not Sharing |

| | |

| | |

| | |

Intellectual Property

Intellectual property is a term that refers to any form of creative work that can be protected through copyright, trademarks, or patents.

Copyrights (©) protect an author of work (such as literary, artistic, dramatic or musical works, computer programs, and sound recordings) from having that work reproduced by others without permission. In Canada, the law that governs this protection is called the Copyright Act. Important points to note are

• You acquire copyright automatically when you create an original work. That means that if someone reproduces an essay you wrote for school without your permission, he or she has violated your copyright. However, that also means that when you copy and paste from the Internet into your essay or project, you are violating someone else’s copyright (plagiarism).

Business World and Ethics

Businesses are made up of people who all have different backgrounds and different moral beliefs (values).

• Today, most Canadians believe that people in business have a “social responsibility” – that is in the best interest of society and the company.

• Many individuals besides owners and shareholders have a stake in what businesses do – employees, customers, special interests groups (ex. Greenpeace), the community, etc. These stakeholders watch to see that business uphold their social responsibilities.

Examples include:

➢ Selling products that do not harm people or the environment

➢ Conducting business in a way that has a positive impact, for example, conserving electrical energy during the recent hydro crisis

➢ Treating employees in a fair manner

➢ Not engaging in fraudulent or deceptive practices

Activity 3

Choose a company or business. Visit their Web site and find out what their position or contribution to social responsibility is (it can be such things as activities targeted to charities, environment, community, employees, etc). Prepare a newspaper/magazine ad that they can use as publicity of their good will to the community. You will present your ad to the class.

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