2-Profession and Professional Practices

🌍 Nature of Profession and Professional Bodies in IT

✅ What does it mean to be a professional?

A professional is not just someone who is skilled. It is someone who puts the organization’s interest above their own convenience within reasonable limits. This means if something is hard or time-consuming, they still do it correctly instead of cutting corners, because the quality of work and trust matter more than personal comfort. Professionals can be relied upon to complete their tasks competently and conscientiously, regardless of difficulties or circumstances. This is what separates professionals from amateurs.

✅ Common characteristics of professionals

  1. Education and Training

    • Professions require substantial education and training before one can practice.
    • Why? Because their work impacts society directly, and mistakes can be dangerous or costly. For example, doctors, engineers, and even software engineers working on critical systems must have rigorous training.

  2. Control of Entry

    • Members of the profession decide what kind of training is required and who qualifies to enter.
    • Why? This keeps quality high and ensures only competent people represent the profession.

  3. Professional Bodies

    • Professions organize themselves into professional bodies (e.g., BCS, ACM, IEEE-CS).
    • These bodies act as guardians of standards, ethics, and education.

  4. Standards of Conduct

    • Professions lay down codes of conduct. If members break these, disciplinary procedures exist.
    • Why? Because trust in the profession must be maintained, and misconduct damages credibility.

✅ What are professional bodies?

Professional bodies are groups of people who share a professional interest and come together to regulate and improve their field.

For example, the British Computer Society (BCS) serves IT professionals.

A mature professional body typically does four things:

  • Establish a code of conduct to regulate members’ behavior.
  • Disseminate knowledge of good practice and new developments (via conferences, publications, or websites).
  • Set education and experience standards for membership.
  • Advise governments and regulators on issues in its field.

✅ Reservation of Title and Function

This is how professions protect their standards legally.

  1. Reservation of Title

    • Some professions make it illegal to use a professional title unless you are registered.
    • Example: In the UK, under the Architects Act 1997, you cannot call yourself an architect unless registered.
    • Why? To protect the public from unqualified people misusing the title.

  2. Reservation of Function

    • Some professions restrict not just the title, but also the work itself.
    • Example: Only qualified accountants can audit public companies in the UK.
    • In veterinary practice, only registered vets can perform surgery on animals (Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966).
    • Why? To prevent harm and ensure only trained experts perform critical functions.

In the US, the government (state level) often maintains professional registers rather than professional bodies themselves, and the UK is moving closer to this model.

✅ Software Development as Engineering

Software engineering should be treated like other engineering disciplines. Why? Because it:

  1. Involves designing and building things that must work correctly (meeting requirements of functionality, performance, and reliability).
  2. Must be completed within constraints of time and budget.

So software engineering has both technical and practical constraints, like traditional engineering.

✅ Status of Engineers (Example: USA)

  • Illegal to call yourself an engineer unless registered with the State Engineers Registration Board.
  • Companies can’t use “engineering” in their name unless they employ registered engineers.
  • Academic programs with “engineering” in the title must be taught mostly by registered engineers.
  • Engineering work must be supervised by a registered engineer.

Why? To ensure only properly qualified people are trusted with work that could affect public safety.

✅ Disasters Related to Software Engineering

  • Therac-25 (USA): A medical radiation machine where software bugs killed patients. It relied solely on computer control without safety backups.
  • London Ambulance System (UK): Software errors caused critical failures in emergency response.

These cases highlight the lack of professionalism and poor software engineering practices, sparking debate on compulsory registration of software engineers.

✅ Why Software Engineer Registration is Difficult

  1. Identifying boundaries: What is a “critical” vs. “non-critical” system? (e.g., traffic control = critical, but is a medical record system critical?)
  2. Diverse roles: Software engineers specialize in many areas (programming, databases, UI, architecture). A single licensing structure doesn’t fit all.
  3. Rapid tech changes: Licensing can’t keep up with fast-evolving technologies.
  4. Self-regulation culture: Industry prefers self-regulation via certifications (IEEE, ACM, Microsoft, Oracle).
  5. Global nature: Software is built across borders, so licensing one country’s engineers doesn’t easily apply worldwide.
  6. Innovation culture: Licensing may hinder startups and innovation by creating barriers to entry.

✅ Education and Accreditation

  • Unlike medicine/law/engineering, computer science degrees vary widely.

  • In Pakistan:

    • NCEAC (National Computing Education Accreditation Council): Accredits computing programs, ensures standards.
    • PEC (Pakistan Engineering Council): Accredits engineering programs, issues licenses for engineers.

✅ Development of Professional Bodies in Computing

  • IEEE-CS (1946) – A professional engineering society.
  • ACM (1947) – Association for Computing Machinery.
  • BCS (1957) – British equivalent of ACM.
  • 1960s onward – Many national computer societies formed (e.g., India 1965, Australia 1966, Pakistan 2006).

Why? To keep up with rapid growth of computing as a profession.

✅ Professional Conduct and Codes

  • Professional Conduct = How professionals behave ethically.
  • Code of Practice = Best ways to perform professional tasks.

BCS Code of Conduct covers four areas:

  1. Public Interest → Protect health, safety, privacy, environment, and avoid discrimination.
  2. Duty to Authority → Work responsibly, avoid conflicts of interest, keep confidentiality.
  3. Duty to Profession → Uphold reputation, improve standards, support colleagues.
  4. Competence & Integrity → Only take on work within competence, stay updated, avoid harm, reject bribery.

Other examples:

  • ISO/IEC 27002 → Best practices for information security.
  • ACM Code of Ethics → Principles of integrity, confidentiality, and social responsibility in computing.

✅ Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Professionals must stay updated as technology evolves.

  • In the past, CPD was left to individuals. Now, bodies like BCS support structured CPD.

  • CPD includes:

    • Publications (Computer Bulletin, research journals).
    • Frameworks (SFIAplus, ISM Matrix).
    • Accredited career development programs for organizations.

✅ Advancement of Knowledge

Professional bodies support research and knowledge-sharing:

  • Computer Journal (BCS) – Publishes global research.
  • IEEE Computer, IEEE Software, Communications of ACM – Authoritative, readable updates for IT professionals.
  • Specialist groups organize conferences, publish books, create reports/software.

🎯 Tough Exam-Style Questions

  1. Why is it important for a profession to have both a reservation of title and a reservation of function? Can you give IT-related examples where lack of either could be harmful?
  2. What lessons do the Therac-25 and London Ambulance System disasters teach us about the need for professionalism in software engineering?
  3. Why is it more difficult to regulate software engineers compared to traditional engineers like civil or mechanical?
  4. Compare the roles of NCEAC and PEC in Pakistan. How are they similar, and how do they differ?
  5. How do professional bodies like ACM, IEEE, and BCS contribute to both the status of the profession and the growth of individual professionals?
  6. The BCS Code of Conduct has four main areas (Public Interest, Duty to Authority, Duty to Profession, Competence & Integrity). Which one do you think is most difficult to enforce, and why?
  7. If licensing for software engineers became mandatory worldwide, what would be the potential advantages and disadvantages?