Ethical Dilemma Of Plagiarism In ICT: A Critical Analysis Essay.

Choose one ethical issue arising from the use of ICT that has been reported in the press in the last one year, and discuss it in depth. Show why or how the technology creates or contributes to the problem. Produce an article, discussing both sides of the issue (pros and cons) drawing on both technical and philosophical literature. In addition, argue for your own view of the matter, giving your reasons for your point of view and showing why you believe that they are better than opposing views.

You will be assessed on your ability to reason, analyse and present cogent argument for the particular case. You should outline the main statement you wish to make about your chosen ethical issue along with your reasons and others’ objections to it. You may use any appropriate technique to set out the basic structure of your article.

Background of the selected issue

Information and communication technology have reshaped the world into a more dynamic place where most of the current tasks are operated in a technically advanced atmosphere. The wide rate of popularity of the ICT has enabled many solutions to the societies or the organizations towards their more complex problem. This has bettered the life and eased the way of living a life. The development of ICT technology is strongly spreading its wing with the help of numerous newly invented technologies (Bretag, 2013). However, ICT has also questioned the ethical rights in many aspects, which are but not limited to such as privacy, piracy, and plagiarism. As argued by Carbo (2006), ethical considerations related to the ICT had first recognized in the year 1992 in the Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (Dias & Bastos, 2014). This was the first instance, which suggests that there are some associated ethical issues with the ICT. The main purpose of this assignment is to analyze the one-selected ethical issues of the ICT such as Plagiarism. Moreover, it also intends to examine critically the applicability of the same.

“Plagiarism” is the selected ethical issues in this context. This is a way to copy others work and present it as the self-work. This is an undeniable fact that the plagiarism is unsocial and unethical; however, despite of the facts, it is one of the most widely used activities across several degree colleges and the different universities (Glendinning, 2014). The advancement of ICT in the field of internet has enabled the copying of high amount of works by just searching the contents on some search engines such as Google. The advent of ICT has enhanced the availability of number of computers in schools and colleges. This has sophisticated the mode of educational and provided some additional ways to take help from; however, it has also reduced the basic and traditional style of education, which was related to the school library rather the internet contents (Gómez-Espinosa, Francisco & Moreno-Ger, 2016). Nevertheless, the desire to search the required content on the internet has somehow detached students from the library. They now rather think that library is nothing but are a good resource to make collection of books. The advent of E learning in some other countries has also forwarded the learning style to one-step ahead. This is however contributing in enhancing the educational level by crating the desire for study in some less interested children. However, despite of all these benefits, they are also being addicted to the usage of internet and the search engines. This has only laid the foundation for the plagiarism works, which are frequently spreading in most educational centres (Howard, 2016).

Technological views on Plagiarism

Technology is in the support of ICT and claims that plagiarism is not only because of technology but also because of the wrong intentions of students, which are compelling them for the same. They govern their point by saying that techno logy has provided solutions to many complex problems. Cloud computing is one of the latest technologies, which provides a work-life balance to many employees. Some of the companies such as IBM are already engaged in taking benefits of the cloud computing technology. They do offer work-life balance and work from home options to the employees. It has enhanced the sophistication in the level of work and has provided maximum productivity in the outcomes (Hu, 2015). They believe that the technological advancement have also contributed hugely in enhancing the economy and the GDP per capita of some developing countries. However, they believe that the unethical outcomes of the ICT are merely because of the users who are being indulged in wrong practices. According to the technological beliefs, innovative and newest technologies are good for the betterment of humanity. Moreover, they favour a fact that technology should never be wrongly used (Kier, 2014).

Plagiarism has no place in the different degree colleges and the different universities; however, some of the philosophical perspectives have some place of admittance to the plagiarism works. Utilitarianism, Kant and Objectivism have different perspectives on the subject matter (Lei & Hu, 2015).

According to Kant, human beings are rational in nature and they are assumed to take actions, which are rationale and appropriate to their creation. This is because of the fact that the beliefs of Kant are more in favour of ethical behaviours and moral decisions. The human nature is something, which can actually do the moral things. Human beings can act in different ways to satisfy their souls by doing rational things. However, they can never do things, which are irrational. This is because of the fact that the Kant believers are not in support of the plagiarism (Li, 2013).

According to Utilitarianism, the human actions can be in accordance to their satisfaction level, which means that human beings are entitled to do something that makes them happy. They support the existence of a bridge in between the pains and happiness, which should be crossed by human being occasionally when it matters the most. According to the believers of Utilitarianism, a small amount of happiness should be tried to achieve by doing some unethical actions. In other words, Utilitarianism is more in support of plagiarism as it is like a way to satisfy the requirements of human being (Newton, 2016).

Philosophical views on Plagiarism

Objectivism has moved another step ahead of Utilitarianism, which supports the happiness of human being at any cost. According to its believers, human beings have all the identities to cross any barrier in their way to success. They are entitled to take anything for supporting their needs. This in other words means that people can use anything, which helps them in the most needful time. Moreover, they are in the support of plagiarism as it helps students gain good marks and helps them suppress their workload (Rainey, 2015).

The topic has itself attracted several debates from the technological and the philosophical perspectives. However, it is an undeniable fact that ICT has provided ample solutions to the more complex problem of human works. From business perspectives, it has provided solutions to the supply chain management, which is one of the most complex parts of a business. Very few companies such as Walmart have been able to track the complexity of the supply chain management. This is one such example, which supports the fact that ICT has sophisticated the business styles and made things easier for years to come (Shin, 2015). However, it has also questioned the privacy level of companies, as some of the confidential contents are easily available on the internet. It has made things easier for the competitor companies to imitate the required things (Smedley, Crawford & Cloete, 2015). The technological advancements are like two aspects of a coin of which one is the good part and another one is the wrong. The argument, which the technological beliefs have produced that user are only responsible to the different kinds of malicious things is not true. This is because that every single literate person is very much aware of right and wrong deeds. Therefore, they are better aware of the wrong parts of the ICT advancement. However, they are being addicted to the internet for fulfilling their requirement. This is ethical but the access to some unethical works such as plagiarism is not at all acceptable. They are not alone responsible for the culprit things as the developers who are making things available on the internet are also responsible for the spreading of this trauma. Nevertheless, they are doing under the instructions some governing body, which are needed to be identified. The local government is also responsible as they are not strict in actions; they are rather playing the verbal comments. The local government should come up with something, which could resist the spreading of plagiarism activities. Moreover, this requires a clear understanding of the system, which is contributing in its growth (Stahl et al., 2014).

Reflection

The philosophical point of views of Utilitarianism and Objectivism is in the favour of plagiarism, as they believe that human being should be supplied with a pleasant life. Objectivism is in particular entirely in the support of the plagiarism, as they believe that human beings can go to any extent for attaining the most pleasant life. According to them, this is ethical as it supplies maximum benefits to the human being. However, the Kant belief is up against the plagiarism, as they believe that human beings are rational and they should only do rational things. Kant beliefs are right, as plagiarism is not a healthy practice for the betterment of student’s career. The career only progress towards an established life if it has learning process in it. Nevertheless, plagiarism does never allow any learning activities to the students. The learning backgrounds of the traditional form of educational centres are somehow declining in its presence with the popularization of plagiarism. It has opened up doors to the most advanced for of education, at the same time it has also closed its door to a progressive career driven in the guidance of sheer learning skills. The hunt to learn new things is reducing in numbers with the advent of ICT and its wrong consequences. This is not only a threat to the personal career of the student but also for the entire society, as it would have less number of professional graduates. Nevertheless, professional graduates are valuable assets for any society. The society in actuality loosing on some of its most required assets, which are the developed professional graduates. Nonetheless, there are still significant numbers of professional graduates; but the rate of their production is being hampered by the gradual development of plagiarism (Smedley, Crawford & Cloete, 2015).

Conclusion

ICT has brought solutions for many complexities in the societies; however, it has also affected the society by contributing in some wrong consequences. Moreover, plagiarism is nothing but a curse on the society, which is affecting the students in particular. The hunt to progress in the career with some genuine and serious works has somehow given way to the most sophisticated and culprit form of education. This is an undeniable fact that the plagiarism activities are lessening the interests of students from the safest and genuine ways of additional educational resources such as libraries in schools and colleges. The plagiarism activities are expanding with the passage of time and it is only becoming bigger and stronger. This is a matter of concern for the entire society and for the local government that they take some necessary initiatives to abolish the plagiarism system and better the prospect of educational system.

References

Bretag, T. (2013). Challenges in addressing plagiarism in education. PLoS Med, 10(12), e1001574.

Dias, P. C., & Bastos, A. S. C. (2014). Plagiarism phenomenon in European countries: Results from GENIUS Project. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 2526-2531.

Glendinning, I. (2014). Responses to student plagiarism in higher education across Europe. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 10(1).

Gómez-Espinosa, M., Francisco, V., & Moreno-Ger, P. (2016). The Impact of Activity Design in Internet Plagiarism in Higher Education. Comunicar, (48), 39-47.

Howard, R. M. (2016). Plagiarism in Higher Education: An Academic Literacies Issue?–Introduction. In Handbook of Academic Integrity (pp. 499-501). Springer Singapore.

Hu, G. (2015). Research on plagiarism in second language writing: Where to from here?. Journal of Second Language Writing, 30, 100-102.

Kier, C. A. (2014). How well do Canadian distance education students understand plagiarism?. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(1).

Lei, J., & Hu, G. (2015). Chinese university EFL teachers’ perceptions of plagiarism. Higher Education, 70(3), 551-565.

Li, Y. (2013). Text-based plagiarism in scientific publishing: Issues, developments and education. Science and engineering ethics, 19(3), 1241-1254.

Newton, P. (2016). Academic integrity: a quantitative study of confidence and understanding in students at the start of their higher education. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 41(3), 482-497.

Rainey, D. (2015). Glimmers on the horizon: Unique ethical issues created by ODR. Dispute Resolution Magazine Winter, 20-23.

Shin, S. K. (2015). Teaching critical, ethical and safe use of ICT in pre-service teacher education. Language Learning & Technology, 19(1), 181-197.

Smedley, A., Crawford, T., & Cloete, L. (2015). An intervention aimed at reducing plagiarism in undergraduate nursing students. Nurse education in practice, 15(3), 168-173.

Stahl, B. C., Eden, G., Jirotka, M., & Coeckelbergh, M. (2014). From computer ethics to responsible research and innovation in ICT: The transition of reference discourses informing ethics-related research in information systems. Information & Management, 51(6), 810-818.