Ethical Implications of Data Mining

Ethical Implications of Data Mining in Government Organizations (2013)

Information mining


Edward Snowden’s release of classified NSA documents revealed the government’s top- secret program to spy on its citizens using a supposed “google back door”. While the technology to mine information exists and becomes increasingly sophisticated, the use of such technology remains controversial. Examine the ethical implications related to government organisations mining its citizens’ personal information.

Portfolio Overview

As part of a scaffolding learning cycle, students will complete a four-part portfolio over the course of the semester. This portfolio will include individual and group aspects, encouraging collaboration and individual responsibility.

Each group will be assigned a social inclusion topic refined to business and economics. To complete the various stages of the portfolio, students will research and become experts on the implications, both practical and ethical, related to the topic. Students will collaboratively problem-solve an aspect of the topic and present substantiated recommendations to respond to an aspect of the social inclusion issue (locally and/or globally).

The portfolio interactions will commence with a focus on research. Students will collect articles and reports related to their topic, read and critically review the content in relation to the social inclusion issue (i.e. critical summaries). Using the information outlined in these critical summaries, students will collaborate to develop a group presentation, demonstrating their expertise on the issue and the ability to collectively argue for complementary recommendations. From there students will develop their recommendations into a coherent, argument.

Finally, as students continue to research their topic and “play” with different approaches and recommendations, they will develop a capstone research report that outlines the issue, identifies areas of weakness or gaps in the services provided, and effectively argues for and proposes responsive actions through a coherent business report.

Critical Summaries (Assessment 2) 
This task requires students to critically read and evaluate discipline-specific texts related to the group’s assigned topic. Each student is required to read four (4) relevant texts and write a critical summary for each, identifying the salient arguments, key statistics and points of reliability for why the article is a valid resource in the academic community. (1000 words)

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