1-++Freedom+of+Speech+Issue

It has been brought to my attention that a faculty member has been using the school internet and server for personal use. This is in violation of the current security and safety ethical code of the university. The current security and safety code is in place to protect the university from any biased ethical situations that may arise against both the students body and administrations and is under constand revision as new technologies and situations may arise. This includes, but it not limited to religion, sex, race, and malicious political ventures. While the university supports freedom of speech, it does not tolerate direct "bullying" to any religious, sex, race, or political group. A committee has been formed of students, staff, and community members to define and outline these constant changing terms. All students, staff, and community members are invited to provide feedback and suggestions on the university blog created for acceptible use policy. This will take place over the next three months. A determination will be made by the committee and a print version of the policy ammendments will be available during the start of the fall semester.
 * Freedom of speech, in regards to technology use, can be a problem situation at the higher education level without an acceptable use policy in place. **
 * Report: **


 * Suggestions for Acceptible Use Policy **

Freedom of speech, in regards to technology use, can be a problem situation at the higher education level without an acceptable use policy in place. "Acceptable use policies will need to distinguish between guidelines, standards and procedures, and guidelines will need to be written in such a way that the policy continuously acknowledges that employees are no longer expected to blindly follow these guidelines.And, as acceptable use policies can no longer cover all the possible risks related to an employee’s behaviour, the policy will need to emphasise both explicitly an implicitly that employees are expected to make an ethical judgement on all their actions that may possibly endanger the organisation’s security. This will in turn have positive effects on the " (Ruighaver, et al. 2010). Ruighaver states that the importance in an acceptable use policy is not effective by using the traditional approach; however it is necessary to use the Ethics approach that has seemed to have gotten lost over the past two decades. When users are not only told what is "good" or "bad", but have a general understanding of what interrupts an organizations "security" is when the consequences of "why" is stated, a user may then gain a better understanding of the acceptable use policy, as well as consciously follow it's guidelines usability and suitability of the acceptable use policy to the organisation. "Ethical decision making is not possible if the acceptable use policy does not clearly state its security objectives. Hence, the policy will need to identify the risk for the organization resulting from an employee’s behaviour, the seriousness of that risk, and how the organisation would like to control that risk (Ruighaver 2010)." Ruighaver also admits the needs for Universities to implement the consequences necessary as an ethical issue, rather than only a security issue. Plans for internet acceptable use policy standards should take place in the ethical use agreement, rather than a separate internet safety course, this will also save on funding by not keeping the two separate. Another ethical consideration is the language and the country that the policy is developed; Wood (1996) argues that the word “shall” should be avoided in policies, guidelines and standards. This is because (at least in the United States) the world “shall” has a very specific legal meaning (Ruighaver 2010).By paying close attention to the language used in acceptable use policies, it will help in developing and implementing a more universal policy across universities in many countries. In review, a university adopted acceptable use policy should reflect the ethics needed in security issues within the organization. By developing a policy grounded in ethics, understanding, and "common sense" by stating the reasons for each standard, more users will abide by the adopted policy. Ruighaver states "We are currently looking for an organization willing to participate and fund longitudinal action research to investigate the most effective way to implement a consequential ethics approach to acceptable use policies". Perhaps this is a starting point for the university explained in the scenario. What is the ethical code violated by posting such knowledge on a university website by this professor? What are the reasons he should not post such a political statement, is it an issue of security for the university? Is it an issue of cyber bullying by this professor toward another sub-group of students at this university? Is it an issue of security for these students?

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 * Additional resources to consider: **
 * Is writing of computer code, freedom of speech or executible? **

Examples of Responsible Use Policies at University in the United States: Responsible Use [] Policy for Responsible Computing: [] Code of the Web: []
 * University of Delaware **

Ruighaver, A.B., Maynard, S.B., Warren, M. (2010) Ethical decision making; improving the quality of acceptible use policies. Computers and Security 29; 731-736.