- Internal Code :
- Subject Code : ITECH3002
- University : Federation University
- Subject Name : Entrepreneurship
Professionalism and Entrepreneurship
Executive Summary of Group Social Computing Issues
This report was commissioned to examine data gathering and its impact. This report will give an overview of what the term data gathering is, analyse how it effects our current society and will evaluate the ethical issues connected to the act of data gathering. This report conducts analysis of data gathering by making comment, citation of other reference materials and studies that have been done, all citations can be found in the references. This report shows that data gathering is a real concern to people in our current society and the ethical treatment of our data.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.
1.0 Introduction.
2.0 Social Computing Issue: Data Gathering.
2.1 Overview of issue: Benjamin Pike.
2.2 Impact on society: Joshua Caton.
2.3 Case study examples: Nathan Solomon.
2.4 Ethical issues: Jubil Shaji
3.0 Conclusion.
4.0 References.
4.1 Benjamin Pike.
4.2 Joshua Carton.
4.3 Nathan Solomon.
4.4 Jubil Shaji
1.0 Introduction to Societal and Ethical Issues of Digitization
Digitization is omnipresent in our society. The digitization has penetrated in our lives, from connecting everyone through social media, to making daily routine automated through IoT. The development of digitization lead to interaction between people and organization though enhanced and virtual reality and other digital platforms (Royakkers et al, 2018). With growing application of digital technology, comes the responsibility of settling ethical issues. The ethics and morals are the basic foundation of humanity and their violation may create chaos.
The digitization gathers data from users to perform desired task. The involvement of technologies in our lives may cause potential risk. Therefore, it becomes necessary to ensure protection against surveillance of technical assistance. Some ethical issues may arise, if proper measures are not observed, such as, privacy invasion, access to sensitive information, user boundary, exploitation of user safety and respect. In this report, we discuss about these issues and their impact upon society. Furthermore, a case study has done to investigate the real-world scenario.
2.0 Social Computing Issue: Data Gathering
2.1 Overview of issue: Benjamin Pike
Data gathering is a huge part in maintaining the integrity of research and is also a huge part in businesses to understand their clientele and what they want or need. According to Margaret Rouse from TechTarget, data gathering “is the systematic approach to gathering and measuring information from a variety of sources to get a complete and accurate picture of an area of interest” (Rouse, 2016). The data gathered by individuals is made up of two main types of data which are qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative is based around collecting data and information on characteristics and/or qualities, while, quantitative data is based more towards data and information that can be counted and/or compared on a numeric scale (Albertson, 2019). These two data types are both gathered via multiple different ways while interacting with individuals or groups. The most five common ways of data gathering are closed-ended surveys and online quizzes, open-ended surveys and questionnaires, 1-on-1 interviews, focus groups, and lastly, direct observations (Jovancic, 2019).
Data gathering and collection is so important for businesses and companies as gathering, studying, researching or analysing clientele can help them make valuable decisions based on their findings. Without these findings by businesses, decision making would be made a lot harder as companies would have nothing to base their decisions on. This is exactly, why data gathering is important in the business world, as it allows them to keep up with the tends of their clientele and provide solutions to many problems within the business, and to be able to analyse new opportunities in the market for their company to expand and succeed (Import.io, 2018). However, businesses have to follow strict laws and rules about the use of people’s data, as data can be misused in many different ways.
2.2 Impact on society: Joshua Caton
Data gathering has changed the way that we do and act online as many of the websites that we visit will collect data or shops that have rewards programs. Having a data as a company will benefit their decision, but it is how that company collects it. A company can collect data via several methods such as documents that people have filled out, interviews or surveys to observation of people’s location. Research from New York Times indicates there are several companies that say “in marketing materials or interviews that they sell location data or services, including targeted advertising” (VALENTINO-DeVRIES, SINGER, KELLER, & KROLIK, 2018). There is also the need for company to protect the data they store from being hacked, analyse data. Data gathering has created number of different jobs in the data field such as a data analyst, data engineer, data scientist (Miller, 2020). A survey from PEW RESEARCH CENTER state the “More than eight-in-ten Americans are concerned about the amount of personal information social media sites and advertisers know about them” (PEW RESEARCH CENTER, 2019), so people are becoming more aware of the information that they are giving up to companies that might sell their data. There are many types of data that can be gathered whether it’s from customers or about how a business run, these data can be very beneficial for companies as it can be used as to aid in analysing your business performance, information that could aid other business such supply and demand these have changed that way business are run today (Antares Technology Solutions, 2018).
2.4 Ethical issues: Jubil Shaji
In the world of digitization, ethics is an important area to concern about by the stakeholders while gathering data. Concerning such fact, few ethical issues hamper the data gathering process negatively. It includes privacy, security, independence, righteousness, human dignity, and balance of power as stated in a study by Royakkers et al., (2018). However, privacy and security are the major ethical issues to be found in the process of data gathering. It is crucial for business organizations and stakeholders to protect confidential and important data from breaches and unknown person to prevent any occurrence of data loss or damage. As stated in the study by Hokke et al., (2018), there are several ethical issues of engaging children and parents within online research. The study reveals that credentials of the user are at stake to breaches and fraudsters who try to access their confidential data and intend to manipulate them for personal or financial benefits. On the other hand, the security of store or share data by users or stakeholders is vital for businesses to sustain (Manžuch, 2017). With the emergence of digitization, securing personal information and confidential data are been at risk from stealers and hackers. The impact of digitization has on managing online engagements and protecting the cultural heritage of regions or societies which are considered significant for them. In addition to that, biases in access, interpretation, selection, and privacy are been identified as growing ethical issues in the online engagement of users and society (Manžuch, 2017). Thus, most of the ethical issues with data gathering arise due to providing a lack of information to customers or users such as disclosure of what will be collected and what not. This indicates a business organization’s dedication and the adoption of ethical values and standards to protect and keep all the gathered data securely and effectively (Royakkers et al., 2018).
3.0 Conclusion on Societal and Ethical Issues of Digitization
In conclusion data gathering has become a major part in our society and will continue to be for many years to come. While data gathering has evolved business operation, there are a number of ethical issues that companies must address to minimise the risk of data being used unethically, moreover, we need to make sure that companies only collect data in an ethical way.
4.0 References for Societal and Ethical Issues of Digitization
Royakkers, L., Timmer, J., Kool, L., & van Est, R. (2018). Societal and ethical issues of digitization. Ethics and Information Technology, 20(2), 127–142.doi:10.1007/s10676-018-9452-x
Albertson, A. (2019, November 8). All Guides: Data Module #1: What is Research Data?: Qualitative vs. Quantitative. Retrieved September 17, 2020, from libguides.macalester.edu website: https://libguides.macalester.edu/c.php?g=527786&p=3608639#:~:text=Qualitative%20data%20describes%20qualities%20or
Import.io. (2018, June 28). What is data, and why is it important? Retrieved September 17, 2020, from Import.io website: https://www.import.io/post/what-is-data-and-why-is-it-important/#:~:text=It%20is%20through%20data%20collection
Jovancic, N. (2019, April 2). 5 Data Collection Methods for Obtaining Quantitative and Qualitative Data. Retrieved September 17, 2020, from LeadQuizzes website: https://www.leadquizzes.com/blog/data-collection-methods/
Rouse, M. (2016, May). What is data collection? - Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved September 16, 2020, from SearchCIO website:https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/data-collection
Antares Technology Solutions. (2018, January 1). Benefits of Data Collection to Improve Business Workflow. Retrieved from Antares Technology Solutions: https://www.antaresnet.com/data_collection/
Miller, K. (2020, June 4). 11 Data Science Careers Shaping Our Future. Retrieved from northeastern: https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/data-science-careers-shaping-our-future/
PEW RESEARCH CENTER. (2019). Americans and Privacy: Concerned, Confusedand Feeling Lack of Control Over Their Personal Information. Pew Research Center. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2019/11/Pew-Research-Center_PI_2019.11.15_Privacy_FINAL.pdf
VALENTINO-DeVRIES, J., SINGER, N., KELLER, M. H., & KROLIK, A. (2018, December 10). Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret. Retrieved from New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/10/business/location-data-privacy-apps
Hokke, S., Hackworth, N., Quin, N., Bennetts, S., Win, H., & Nicholson, J. et al. (2018). Ethical issues in using the internet to engage participants in family and child research: A scoping review. PLOS ONE, 13(9), e0204572. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204572
Manžuch, Zinaida (2017) "Ethical Issues in Digitization of Cultural Heritage,"Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies: Vol. 4, Article4. Retrieved from: http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/jcas/vol4/iss2/4
Royakkers, L., Timmer, J., Kool, L., & van Est, R. (2018). Societal and ethical issues of digitization. Ethics and Information Technology, 20(2), 127-142. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9452-x
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