7.1 Ethics and ownership

Need for and purpose of ethics as a computing professional

• Importance of joining a professional ethical body including BCS (British Computer Society), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers)
  • You will have ethical guidelines to follow
  • Clients/staff know you are reputable
  • They provide help and support
  • They run training courses

Need to act ethically and the impact of acting ethically or unethically for a given situation

• Act in best interest of product

• Act in best interest of client

• Act in best interest of profession

• Act in best interest of company

Need for copyright legislation

• Copyright is the formal recognition of ownership

Different types of software licencing and justify the use of a licence, including free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, shareware and commercial software

• Shareware is commercial software which is made available on a trial basis for a limited time

• Freeware might be a limited version of a full package or possibly an earlier version

• Open Source Initiative makes open source software available
  • Normally made free of charge
  • Source code is provided

• Free Software Foundation
  • Still open source
  • The source code for the modified version must be made available to other users

Understanding of AI, including social, economic and environmental issues; applications of AI

• Problem solving

• Linguistics
  • Voice recognition, voice synthesis

• Perception

• Reasoning

• Learning