Ethics and Professional Issues in Information System Development

There is a failure on some projects. That failure happened maybe because of technical error, or human factors. Why FAIL? It failed because of many reasons and causes, such as: over commitment to projects, managers is not capable enough to take impartial view of project, and also social pressures that sometimes exist in an organization. Where do the problems LIE? Everywhere. When there is a community, people who compete for power & resources, people with different opinions, decision-making, etc.

We live in a world that most of the industries are using IS for daily work. That's what makes IS is one of important things we have to deal with. IS professionals have responsible to development and implementation of the system. And they have to do it professionally unless they wanna be fired by the boss ;-p because of that, IS professionals need to know the ethical attitudes in daily work.

Ethics?
The discipline which is concerning with what is good and bad and with moral duty & obligation.

Computer Ethics?
Analysis of nature and social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation & justification of policies for the ethical use of such technologies.

Professionalism?
Having standards that set by a professionals in terms of individual conduct, competence & integrity.

As a starting point to increase professionalism in IT/IS issue. There are many way you can do, such as: Take into account how professional issues in computing are taught, locate & increase self-awareness of teaching professional issues in computing curriculum, look into different approaches to delivery, and also, important issues have to be situated to create computing professionals in line with Engineering, Law, Medicine, etc. For more inspiring code of ethics, please visit ACM - Code of Ethics.

The Concept of IT Risk Management

In the early 1950s, there was a development for insurance in US. Because, some people in US purchased insurance but there was no attention to protection of the people and their property, and also poor awareness from the people about the quality of property protection, healthcare and safety standards, and other issues concerned risk control. So, because of that condition, they needed risk management.

What is Risk Management?

Based on Institute of Risk Management, it's a process that has purpose to help organizations understanding, evaluating, and taking actions on all their risks in order to increase the probability of success and reducing the probability of failure.

Is It Important to Learn Risk Management?

Earlier before, people use risk management only when they had to deal with hazard risks. Nowadays, it concerned to the improved of control risks and opportunity risks. Besides, because of many issues both in relation to managing an organization and changing in the market place, the importance of risk management is decreased.

Some major areas that needs risk managements are:

• Project risk management
• Medical risk management
• Energy risk management
• Operational risk management

Preliminary, an organization may be aware of a new risk and the need to take right action. In that case, there will be a necessity for the organization to REFORM in response to the hazard one. After that, the organization will find to CONFORM with the right risk control standards. Finally, the organization may recognize that there are some benefits to be gained from the risk. The organization will have the capability to PERFORM and see the risk as an opportunity risk.

Risk management has its own principle. A successful risk management aegis will be comparable to the level risk within the organization, in the tune with other business activities, comprehensive, systematic, and structured, also instilled with business processes, dynamic, iterative and responsive to change.

Perspective of risk management explained that each type of risk managements outcomes different result.  Hazard management creates less negative impact. Control management cut down on deployment of likely results. Opportunity management comes out with more positive result. :-)



References:

• Hopkin, Paul. Fundamentals of Risk Management. KoganPage: 2010.
• A Guide to PMBoK4thEdition

The Difference Between Risk and Uncertainty

Have you ever think what's risk and what's uncertainty? Try to think about that! When you think about that, maybe some of you could not differ them. Risk is a part of uncertainty. But uncertainty isn't part of risk.

"All risks are uncertain, however, not all uncertainties are risks."

There are many definitions about risks, some of them are:

• Risk is the combination of the probability of an uncertain event and its consequences - IRM (Institute of Risk Management). Positive consequence could result a opportunity, meanwhile, negative consequence could come out with threat.
• Risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has an effect on at least one project objective - PMBoK. We never avoid risks, whatever the risks are. There will be always risks for anything. 

What makes us cannot avoid risks?

We cannot avoid risks, but we can minimize them. Risks happen because of we are lack of knowledge, experience, information, and uncertainty what's coming next. Besides that, we have or somehow find requirement, assumption, constraints, or condition that come up with the possibility of negative or positive outcomes.

Type of Risks

Every risk that we found in our life has its own characteristics. We can divide risks into 3 types:

1. Hazard (pure) risks. This kind of risk will give negative impacts to your company / organization.
2. Control (uncertainty) risks. From certain to uncertain.
3. Opportunity (speculative) risks. No worries about this one kind of risk.

Risks could be negative or positive. But, still, there are many risk importance, such as:

• Your organization or company will be more efficient in order to take action on some events that cause disruption.
• Processes will be more effective
• Your company will be well-prepared with many strategies. This is really important! With risks, most companies will carry out their business processes that had been set up with strategies they had planned before.

Konsep IS/IT

Sebelum kita mengenal lebih dalam mengenai manajemen resiko IS / IT. Kita harus mengetahui lebih dulu apa sebenarnya definisi dari IT (Information Technology). 

Beberapa definisi IT antara lain:

• Information Technology (IT) deals with "the use of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit and manipulate data”. - Wikipedia
• “Any combination of information technology and people's activities that support operations, management and decision making” (SEI, 2007)

Setelah mengetahui definisi IT, kita harus mengetahui apa saja komponen dari IS, komponen-komponen tersebut sangatlah penting bagi jalannya suatu sistem dalam organisasi. Komponen-komponen dari IS adalah:

1. People
2. Hardware
3. Software
4. Data
5. Networks

IT merupakan salah satu komponen yang penting di dunia global sekarang. Tanpa IT, mungkin dunia bisnis tidak akan semudah sekarang. IT 

Old IT - big computers, low disk space, bad design

New IT - Sleek and clean design, with much disk space, and easy to use

Banyak sekali penggunaan IT di sekitar kita untuk kebutuhan sehari-hari :-) 

Selain itu, dengan adanya IT, IT telah membuat banyak perubahan, dan membentuk sebuah bisnis model yang baru

• Bisnis model yang baru: amazon (online bookstore), iTunes (online music store), m-banking, e-banking, etc
• Proses: self-service, mass customization, integrasi rantai pasok, etc
• Produk/Service: smartphones, tablets, robots, etc

Karena IT telah membentuk sebuah bisnis model yang baru bagi sebuah organisasi, perubahan dalam organisasi karena adanya IT sangatlah signifikan. Organisasi yang sebelumnya menggunakan sistem manual, dan setelah memakai teknologi informasi terbaru dapat mendapatkan keuntungan sekaligus resiko. Oleh karena itu, sangatlah penting bagi perusahaan/organisasi untuk memiliki manajemen IT yang sangat matang :-)

English Around Education in Indonesia

As an Indonesian young generation who love our nation and country, it is considerably important to learn our mother tongue, Bahasa Indonesia. Nonetheless it doesn’t mean that isn’t compulsory to learn another language, especially English. As you know that now we live in globalization era which means it requires people to use English more frequently and properly. Science, politics, entertainment, everything necessitates the usage English if you intend to move broader now.

Now in Indonesia, our education system is getting better and better. Some of public schools have provided several programs. For example, some schools provide different programs, the regular and the international program. However the students only have to choose one of them. If we choose the regular, we are not compulsory to attend international examinations which are held by the school’s partner. However, if we choose international program, it’s a must for us to attend both international and national examinations and use English as daily language. And it’s a great educational system because it will contribute better competent students.

Using English as daily language will offer huge benefits for us. The students will be able to compete with the others student. For instance, when we want an international scholarship, the first that we have to see is our English. Is it acceptable and good enough? This is one of the reasons why it is very important to use English at school. It helps us to prepare for the next level at university that is not as simple as ABC. Moreover, English will ease the socialization of the students amongst global people.

Sometimes, students did not realize that their mother tongue had been forgotten. Some people said if you’re good at English, you must be good at Bahasa Indonesia too. As a matter of fact, many students aren’t fully understood their own mother tongue, even their English grades are much better than their Indonesia. This phenomenon is really occurred at times. The students thought Bahasa Indonesia was a difficult lesson and English was an easy one to learn. It is such a false opinion. The students should see Bahasa Indonesia from different point of view that that is one what we should be proud of. Another problem we have to face is about the quality of teachers and range of facilities from that school. Do teachers speak English fluently? Does the school have complete facilities? Most of public schools would say no. many teachers do not have competent skills for teaching competent students, and it will absolutely obstruct the learning development of the students. Moreover, facilities have a big impact for the students. Books, laboratories, computers, and a propitious class are needed by students.

Everything needs progress to reach the goal. Our education system's goal’s is that every student in Indonesia is able to speak fluently both at English and Indonesia. Despite the benefits and problems we had faced, English usage within education in Indonesian has moved to the next level, to the better future.