Tutorial One: Information Technology and the ethical issues surrounding it!

This was our first tutorial for Participation in Occupational Therapy. We were looking at the ethical issues surrounding information technology, for example, what issues are involved when using IT to distribute information.

For a starter, let's decide what the term"Information technology" means:

• "Information technology" can be defined as "the production, storage, and communication of information using computers and electronic technology". (Collins English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 2006)

So for humans in this digital age, this pretty much comes into play every day of our lives!!

Most things we use to get information in our lives are electronic or will have computers involved in producing or storing their information. Take the TV for example, in the news, they will employ digital technology to gain their information from overseas, and use digital technology to transmit the news to us. Another example is the World Wide Web... a lot of us turn to the web to gain information about a HUGE range of topics!!! (whether or not it is reliable information!!) Another example is studying these days... we are expected as students to be pretty up to date with technology, and if we aren't-woe betide us, it makes our lives that much harder!!! It's very common to have lecture notes posted online, and we are expected to know how to resource reliable literature off databases online, and also, submit our assisnments to lecturers electronically :) That's a lot of learning if you aren't feeling competent in the world of Information Technology!!!

Luckily for me, I feel like as long as I try to keep up with the digital world, and use new technology, I can pick it up and use it pretty easily. Sometimes it's a bit frustrating, like when my USB stick decided it didn't want to work the day before assignments were due! It's also a bit frustrating when it seems that the digital way is harder than the "old" way, like sometimes submitting assignments online is not quite as satisfying as dropping them safely into the lecturer's pigeon hole-there's the added stress of thinking "did it work??"

This blog is an excellent example of using new technology in order to keep up with the times, I will learn loads over the next few months as a result of doing this!

In Occupational Therapy practice, Information Technology is utelised in lots of ways. Ways I have seen so far are:

• directing clients to websites for them to educate themselves,


• Occupational Therapists have to submit competencies online each year to the OT Board of NZ in order to keep their practicing certificates,


• presenting inservices to one another by means of powerpoint etc,


• ordering equipment online, or seeing what is available in the equipment store,


• providing clients who have limited access to the community resources for online learning (Open Polytechnic etc),


• taking pictures of outings to put together a scrapbook with clients,


• taking pictures of client's houses in order to place them into a report.

I'm sure there are loads more, that I haven't seen yet (ar maybe have seen, yet have not "noticed", because IT is so commonplace these days I don't think twice about it!)

Since this blog posting's focus is on ethics as a whole, lets' look at the definition of Computer Ethics. Computer ethics has been around as a concept since the 1970's, but only recently in the 90's has it been integrated into professional settings. As defined on wikipedia:

• Computer ethics is a practical philosophical issue which guides how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct. (Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_ethics, 20th May 2009).

There are models that people looking at computer ethics can follow to identify issues and take action to solve them.

One obvious ethical issue when using Information Technology to capture, share, and transmit information is that we need to be careful to gain informed consent to publish information/pictures.

• Informed consent is a legal term in which a person has given their consent, after the terms, facts, and implications of the action has been explained to them. (Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent, May 16th, 2009.)

In Occupational Therapy, sometimes the person with whom we are working may not be able to make their informed consent clear to us. Therefore we must carefully think about what/whom we are taking pictures of, and the context in which they will be used (public, private use etc).

Another issue when using Information Technology is that we have to be careful to give credit to the owners of the material we use. It can be easy to "copy and paste" material off websites without using references, and to do this would be a breach of Intellectual Property Rights.

• Intellectual Property is a legal concept that covers the ownership of material, as belonging to the owner. It can be applied to creations of the mind, like designs, phrases, symbols, music, art etc. The law controls certain aspects of intellectual property rights, in the form of patents, copyrights etc etc. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property, 16th May, 2009).

Therefore, in order not to breach the owner's intellectual property rights, we must always provide a reference as to where the information we are using comes from!

Also, another issue to think about when using information technonoly, is Social Justice, which wikepedia defines as:

• a concept in society which justice is achieved in all aspects of a society, rather than merely the administration of law. Social justice is a term which gives all members and groups in sociaty fair treatment, and an equal share of the benefits in societies. (Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_justice, May 20th, 2009).

I suppose in relation to Infromation technology, social justice is referring to "the digital divide", in which some societies are better off because they have easier access to IT and therefore their societies' "advance" quicker than those who don't have such easy access.

Here's a very interesting article from BBC News about the digital divide, and how some UK companies are working together to bridge it by introducing technolgyto places like remote Indian communities and the sub-Sahara in Africa. The technology they are introducing includes AV material, e-science (to help guide agricultural practice), and community flat screens (from which information can be transmitted to mobile phones-in places where the mobile ph network is too expensive or hard to access).

In conclusion, as OT's, a greater understanding of IT and the ethical issues surrounding it will lead us to being able to participating in this ever-changing world of our's successfully.