paper -
91 Shaping a New Generation of Users - You can show them the policies, but you can't make them think
John
Lerchey, Carnegie Mellon University
Constance Paras, Carnegie Mellon University
Access to networked computing over the last 20 years
has evolved from being a rare privilege to being nearly ubiquitous through the
deregulation of the internet and the emergence of ISPs. Where users in the past were either
affiliated with educational sites, government organizations, or were employees
of a computer vendor, today's users only require a modem and the ability to
dole out $20 per month to get full internet access. Further, where it was once the case that computer users were at
least college-age, children in grade school, and in some cases, pre-school,
have internet access. The access to the technology is more commonplace, but the
instruction on how to appropriately use the technology is often missing.
As students, often possessing impressive technical knowledge and skills, enter institutes of higher education, they are often under-prepared to use their skills and internet access responsibly and ethically. As educators, it falls upon us to provide them with polices and service guidelines which are easy to find, easy to understand, and which provide clear examples of violations which could impact their future, and the security and reputation of the school that they are attending. Violations need to be resolved by appropriate personnel quickly and professionally. While computing staff may be adequate to resolve issues of "service guideline" violations, university policies and ethical issues should be resolved using the organization's judicial procedures. Most computing "abuses" would be unethical regardless of the vehicle used in the transaction; oddly, if a computer is used there are people who believe it to be a technology issue instead of an ethical or legal issue. This paper discusses why it is important to have clearly defined policies and guidelines, some methods of getting the word out, and how to appropriately handle incidents, hopefully balancing the need for individual user's rights against the "common good" of the campus community.