Ensuring the sustainable and ethical use of technology in the human services.

Paper #1535 presented at #husITa14 in Melbourne, Australia, July, 2014.

Presenter

Akindele Sonola (Business Connexion, South Africa).

Abstract

Human services today is a multi-disciplinary service spanning across several fields with all aimed at improving the human services based on the ethics, values and objectives of the discipline. The multi-disciplinary attribute of human services indicates that it experiences some form of evolution over time due to the evolving environment and human survival needs with the core values of these disciplines being preserved and sustained all through its evolution. However, with the present global technological evolution being experienced, several disciplines are aligning themselves with some form of technology or the other in other to ensure alignment with recent trends and also to provide more effective and efficient means for service delivery. Moreover with different fields employing some form of technology or the other for better service delivery, the question remains; are the techniques being employed ethical?, is the technology, ethics, values and etc sustainable. By examining key areas in some disciplines such as mental health services, education, social welfare and etc, we will discover that some technology can be sustainable and also see that most often ethics is being neglected using technology as a cover up to delivering service due to some negligence. Inadequate consideration of ethics into developing technological solutions still adversely affects the sustainability and ethical use of technology in the human services.

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