Assignment two.

 “Rethinking information ethics education in Ghana. Is it adequate?” written based on the three dominant ethical theories that define information ethics. They are

1. Consequence-based theories or consequentialism

2. Duty-based theory or deontology

3. Virtue-based theories that also include right-based theories (Fallis, 2007)

See http://www.lis.uzulu.ac.za/

The first one is about the outcomes. The second, one is about the rules. The third one is about the character of people or moral agents. Since all these emphasizes on ethical value in the society. Hence, they will help people not to violate any value of the society. Therefore following those theories will promote what is good in the people namely their norms, displine, morals and values which are believed by everyone.

Perpetua S.Dadzie did this study .The data obtained from the universities’ websites, handbooks, course outlines. Hence, some interviews with librarians, faculty members and from the students were included. It published in 2011, in the international library review volume 43, pages 63-69.

There was a quantitative analysis made to check the aspects of information ethics taught in different educational organizations. According to the table it is run, in Faculty, department and in school. It also identify whether it was taught in the under graduate level or postgraduate level. There was no any course taught in this aspect at any school. The table stated that whether the taught courses were specific on IE issues or not.

There was an introduction, which talked about the enhancement to access the information and how it should be retrieve. In addition, had cited the Geneva’s convention specific to the information ethics. Furthermore, it talked about ethical principles that followed in order to get the information and hence the benefits it would have got.

In the body, the writer talked about the present situation of the information ethic education in Ghana. He   explained that IE not taught in any tertiary education institute .And also students were not questions about any serious information ethics violation. The writer further emphasized that there were policies made on information ethics. However, none of the student penalized so far. In addition, the students were not even aware that they exist.

The other parts were challenges and the opportunities of information ethics education. It seems that there were challenges in the universities and in the whole nation. If this course needed to be run, lot of full time lecturers would have been needed which already burden to the universities.And  getting the approval from the university board seemed to be difficult and it might take about 2 years to be in action.

The external challenges were that already absent laws and policies about the information ethics. Moreover, the delay of enacting bills. Sometimes if certain law exists, people fail to obey it. The reason was there was no strong enforcement of the laws about information ethics since people were not aware of it. The other challenges were the absence of coherent national information policy. Moreover the last challenge was that the absent of cyber law. The opportunities described next were, an introduction course for all fresh candidates, for this part time lecturer can be hired. The other opportunity was to introduce a faculty required information ethic course. This will be much possible because it was   much smaller scale. In addition, universities can make their code of conduct on academic integrity and plagiarism. Furthermore, departments can also make guideline about information ethics covering the major parts. Still more, library association, jourlist association and government agencies can provide awareness program about this issue.

In the conclusion, it emphasized to the important of knowing the information ethics to Ghanaian citizen. The aspects of IE taught in the universities were not enough for them to have sound knowledge about it. Therefore, they continued to misuse information out of ignorance. Hence, it was a great requirement to structure program at higher education level.