Exploring students` attitute towards information ethics issues :the case of International Islamic University Malaysia

Abstract

The prevalent use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and its applications have resulted in many ethical issues to emerge. The continuous rapid development of ICT will continue to raise new ethical issues and students are likely to have little understanding of the ethical issues associated with using ICT. Thus, the purpose of this research is to explore the International Islamic University Malaysia‘ (IIUM) students‘ attitude towards Information ethics issues of Privacy, Property, Accuracy and Access using Mason‘s (1986) framework. This study also investigates the differences of the students‘ individual characteristics of gender, age, marital status, level of study and computer usage with regard to their attitude towards information ethics issues. The study adopted an instrument to collect students‘ demographic information and evaluated their attitude towards the information ethics issues. A total of 219 questionnaires were collected from the undergraduate and graduate students of IIUM who participated in the survey. Students were found to be generally insensitive to the ethicality of information privacy and protecting one‘s confidential information as well as the information property and software copyright compliance. The study also found that students are sensitive to the ethicality of information accuracy considering the importance of systems to provide accurate information and the unethicality of information access, that is; unauthorized access to computing and information resources for personal gain. There were no significant differences of the students‘ individuals‘ characteristics of gender, age and marital status with regard to their attitude towards information ethics issues of Privacy, Property, Accuracy and Access. However, Level of study showed the existence of significant differences of the students‘ attitude towards the Information privacy and Information Access, while the frequency of computer usage was found to have a significant difference on students‘ attitude towards Information Access. Revising and updating ethics education courses integrated in the university‘s curricula can help students develop an ethical responsibility and a proper attitude towards Information ethics issues. In addition, Islamic teachings on ethics embedded in the courses taught can change students‘ negative attitude towards Information Privacy and Property (software) rights.