The Ethics of the Creation, Distribution, and Use of Metadata
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This paper discusses the ethical issues that may arise in the creation, distribution, and use of metadata. To do this, one must first understand what metadata is, and have a reasonable understanding of how it is used today. Metadata is not a word that the average person can state a definition for. In fact, even many technologically inclined people may not have a sound idea of what exactly metadata means. Although many people don’t recognize the name, metadata, many people look at, use, or even create metadata on a daily basis. To truly appreciate how important metadata is one must have a firm grasp on what metadata allows and how difficult information retrieval is without it.
What is Metadata?
“The variety and amount of information and information-dependent activities from which we can choose seems to be expanding exponentially.”1 The huge amount of information available, that covers a vast number of topics, requires an efficient way to access this information if any reasonable learning is to take place. This is exactly what metadata does. It categorizes the information created by one person so that others may find it and utilize it. Metadata could be said to be “information about information” or “data about data.”2
If metadata’s purpose, “is to enable integration and retrieval within information systems,” 3 then it needs interoperability, or “the ability of software and hardware on multiple machines from multiple vendors to communicate.”4 This means that for metadata to have a positive effect, or to actually be helpful, standards must be in place, so that one person’s metadata can be comparably likened to a second person’s metadata, and th...
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...2 Amy Brand, Frank Daly, Barbara Meyers, "Metadata Demystified," The Sheridan Press and NISO Press (July 2003). <www.niso.org/standards/resources/ Metadata_Demystified.pdf>
3 Brody (35)
4Dictionary.com, 2003, Lexico Publishing Group LLC, 17 Nov. 2003, <http://dictionary.reference.com>
5Eddie Byrne, Metadata A Primer, 2000, WebSeach, 21 Oct. 2003, <http://www.clubi.ie/webserch/metadata.html>
6Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, 2003, DCMI, 24 Oct. 2003, <http://dublincore.org>
7 DCMI
8 Brody (36)
9James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy 4th ed., (New York, NY:McGraw-Hill 2003) 93.
10Manuel G Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases 4th ed., (New Jersey:Prentice Hall Inc. 1998) 105.
11 Velasquez (94)
11 Rachels (175)
13 Brody (35)
14 Brody (36)
15 Brody (37)
16 Brody (37)
17 Brody (38)
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From the beginning of Hawthorne’s story a test of faith prevails. From the moment that Young Goodman Brown parts with his wife, Faith, to when they meet again at the heart of the forest, the very manner Young Goodman Brown has been taught his entire life is at stake. Yet it is not so much Goodman Brown’s faith in God that is the concern but whether or not Goodman Brown feels he can trust anyone or anything he has ever come to know and believe in. Society has preconditioned him to think a certain way, thus through this journey Young Goodman Brown cannot deal with the new Puritan life he witnesses. Since he is unsure of what his society is truly like Goodman Brown is now incapable of knowing his place in society and knowing whom he really is.
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... occur later in the story. Also, they both deal with the issue if discrimination. Although it is more prominent in “The Child By Tiger,” the prejudices against race are mentioned in these stories and impact the actions of the characters. On the other hand, the characterizations of the characters are very different. Prosser and Rainsford are developed differently and that impact the audiences view of them. When analyzing these stories in order to compare and contrast them, many points stuck out and made the stories more interesting. “The Child by Tiger” and “The Most Dangerous Game” are extremely well written short stories that both relate and differ in countless ways.
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There are various kinds of definitions about what data mining is. The authors in [1] define data mining as “the process of extracting previously unknown information from (usually large quantities of) data, which can, in the right context, lead to knowledge”. Data mining is widely used in areas such as business analysis, bioinformatics analysis, medical analysis, etc. Data mining techniques bring us a lot of benefits. Business companies can use data mining tools to search potential customers and increase their profits; medical diagnosis can use data mining to predict potential disease. Although the term “data mining” itself is neutral and has no ethical implications, it is often related to the analysis of information associated with individuals. “The ethical dilemmas arise when data mining is executed over the data of an individual” [2]. For example, using a user’s data to do data mining and classifying the user into some group may result in a variety of ethical issues. In this paper, we deal with two kinds of ethical issues caused by data mining techniques: informational privacy issues in web-data mining and database security issues in data mining. We also look at these ethical issues in a societal level and a global level.
One of the most recent examples of ethics and technology conflicts in the United States are privacy issues and how we cite, distribute and publish intellectual property on the internet. For instance, many corporations and people take advantage of the open access of the internet and the lack of legislation governing the right to post and upload information to the internet. Today, nearly every household in the United States has a computer with int...
In the early years of computers and computerized technology, computer engineers had to believe that their contribution to the development of computer technology would produce positive impacts on the people that would use it. During the infancy of computer technology, ethical issues concerning computer technology were almost nonexistent because computers back then were not as multifaceted as they are today. However, ethical issues relating to computer technology and cyber technology is undeniable in today’s society. Computer technology plays a crucial role in all aspects of our daily lives. Different forms of computer technology provide unique functionalities that allow people to perform daily activities effectively and efficiently. In modern society, we use computer and cyber technology to communicate with friends and family via social networking sites, participate in business transactions, and get current news. Different tasks require unique technological feature in computer technology to function properly. Although, unique technological features increase people’s proficiency in accomplishing various tasks, unique technological features in computer and cyber technology increase security vulnerabilities. In many cases, the security vulnerabilities in computer technology are exploited by cybercriminals to invade people’s privacy, and steal people’s identity. We know that computers have no moral compass; they cannot make moral decisions for themselves. Essentially, people make moral decisions that affect others positively or negatively depending on how they use computer technology. Some of the biggest ethical issues facing people in the computing environment include privacy concerns on the web and identity theft. Privacy concerns...
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