INET3011W: Social Impact of Information Technology

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has a profound impact on society in many different ways. Some of these ways -- for example, in a business or in terms of specific employment activities -- you will study in other courses; INET 3011W asks you to think about the ethical decision-making that goes into ICT activities and their impact within and beyond the ICT world. What ethical choices must individuals make when designing new software or applications? What sorts of problems and competing interests can arise during work in organizational teams or across an industry, and how can they be resolved? More fundamentally, what impact does ICT, along with the ethical decisions made by those working in the field, have on the larger world -- the communities in which it is deployed, the environment on which it operates, and the governments and economies in which it plays an ever-increasing role? To address these and related questions, INET 3011W will require you to examine ICT's impact from three different perspectives: (1) the individual decision-maker; (2) the team or organizational dynamic; and (3) the stakeholders at the social, and even global, level. prereq: None

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