Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Information, Communication & Ethics in

Society, Volume 8, Issue 2

ItAIS (www.itais.org) was established in 2003 as the Italian Chapter of the Association For
Information Systems ((AIS)www.aisnet.org) and has since been promoting the exchange of
ideas, experience, and knowledge among both academics and professionals committed to the
development, management, organization, and use of information systems (IS). This Chapter
is an international organization that seeks to identify, extend, unify, and communicate
knowledge in information technology (IT), IS, and information management (IM).

ItAIS ( www.itais.org ) didirikan pada tahun 2003 the Italian Chapter of the Association For
Information Systems ((AIS)www.aisnet.org) dan sejak itu telah mempromosikan pertukaran ide
, pengalaman , dan pengetahuan di kalangan akademisi dan profesional berkomitmen untuk
pengembangan , manajemen , organisasi , dan penggunaan sistem informasi ( IS ) . Bab ini adalah
sebuah organisasi internasional yang bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi , memperpanjang ,
menyatukan , dan mengkomunikasikan pengetahuan di bidang teknologi informasi ( IT ) , IS , dan
manajemen informasi ( IM ) .

The specific purposes of the ItAIS Chapter are to:
create and maintain a professional identity for the IS researchers, teachers, and
professionals across the country;
present the countrys IS research in all international IS conferences such as ICIS,
AMCIS, HICS, ECIS, SAIS, PACIS, and others;
create a vision for the future of the IS field and profession in the country;
establish standards of research, practice, ethics, and education where appropriate;
promote communications and interaction among country members;
include professionals across the country; and
create and implement a modern, technologically sophisticated professional society for
the country.
To these ends, the ItAIS Chapter intends to conduct meetings, to publish books, journals, and
other materials; to cooperate with other organizations interested in the advancement and
practice of IS, to stimulate research; to promote high professional standards, and in general,
to promote the growth of IS, and to improve the professions quality through the promotion
of communications and interaction among the profession.

Tujuan spesifik dari bab ItAIS adalah untuk:

menciptakan dan mempertahankan identitas profesional bagi para peneliti IS , guru , dan
profesional di seluruh negeri ;
menyajikan negara IS penelitian di semua internasional IS konferensi seperti ICIS , AMCIS ,
HICs , ECIS , SAIS , Pacis , dan lain-lain ;
menciptakan visi untuk masa depan bidang IS dan profesi di negeri ini ;
menetapkan standar penelitian , praktek , etika , dan pendidikan yang sesuai;
mempromosikan komunikasi dan interaksi di antara negara-negara anggota ;
termasuk para profesional di seluruh negeri , dan
membuat dan menerapkan , masyarakat profesional teknologi canggih modern untuk negara .
Untuk tujuan ini, bab ItAIS bermaksud untuk melakukan pertemuan , untuk menerbitkan
buku, jurnal , dan bahan-bahan lainnya , untuk bekerja sama dengan organisasi-organisasi
lain yang tertarik dalam kemajuan dan praktek IS , untuk merangsang penelitian; untuk
mempromosikan standar profesional yang tinggi , dan secara umum , untuk mempromosikan
pertumbuhan IS , dan untuk meningkatkan kualitas profesi melalui promosi komunikasi dan
interaksi antar profesi .

The annual ItAIS conference is the major annual event of the Italian Information System
community and is thought of as a forum to enable discussions and experience exchanges
among researchers in the field, from both academy and industry.
The fifth edition (ItAIS 2008) has been held in Paris the previous editions took place in
Venice on 2007, in Milan on 2006, in Verona on 2005 and in Naples on 2004.
ItAIS 2008 gave the possibility to bring together researchers, scientists, engineers, and
scholar students to exchange and share their experiences, new ideas, and research results
about all aspects of intelligent systems, and discuss the practical challenges encountered and
the solutions adopted. The conference included ten tracks:
1. e-services in public and private sectors;
2. governance, metrics and economics of IT;
3. information and knowledge management;
4. IS development and design methodologies;
5. IS theory and research methodologies;
6. legal and ethical aspects of IS;
7. new themes and frontiers in IS studies;
8. organizational change and impact of IT;
9. human computer interaction; and
10. strategic role of IS.
The successful level of participation that had been registered in the previous editions has been
repeated at ItAIS 2008, which attracted 113 submissions from Italian and foreign researchers.
Among them, 87 contributions were accepted for presentation at the conference. The
conference took place at the European School of Management in Paris on December 13-14,
2008 and was organized in five parallel sessions, held in the afternoon of first day and in the
morning of second one.
The following three contributions we are offering in this special section were selected as
ItAIS 2008 best papers for the track Legal and ethical aspects of IS.
Ugo Pagallos paper Ethics among peers: file sharing on the internet between openness and
precaution deals with file sharing over the net within P2P systems. Starting from a
multidisciplinary approach (including network theory, law, and ethics), Pagallo suggests to
overcome the polarization of todays debate on P2P systems by defining a fair balance
between the principle of precaution and the principle of openness. Indeed, from one side (i.e.
censors), there are some serious problems afflicting this technology as with copyright claims,
threats to creativity and innovation, issues of connectivity, or the free riding phenomenon. On
the other side (i.e. supporters of this new paradigm), there are the many ways in which these
systems promote free participation and collaboration, and support new forms of producing
goods cooperatively through highly decentralized or distributed forms of networks.
According to the author, application of a fair balance among the various fundamental
interests involved in the evolution of these systems suggests checking the principle of
precaution in connection with the principle of openness and the levels of evidence required
by the former principle. Pagallo concludes that threats arising from these file sharing
applications-systems should not be a pretext to limit freedom of research, speech, or the right
freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, as granted by the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights from 1948.
Edward Howlett Spences The normative structure of information and its communication
starts with the premise that the internet has a global character; the paper thus argues that the
normative evaluation of digital information on the internet necessitates an evaluative model
that is itself universal and global in character. To this end, the paper demonstrates and
supports a universal model for the normative evaluation of information on the internet. Such
a universal model comprises two main parts that together seek to show that information is
doubly normative:
1. information and internet information specifically, has an inherent normative structure
that commits its disseminators to certain mandatory epistemological and ethical
commitments; and
2. the negligent or purposeful abuse of information in violation of those commitments is
also a violation of universal rights to freedom and wellbeing to which all agents are
entitled by virtue of being agents, and in particular informational agents.
Spence finally claims that according to this dual normative model of information it is possible
to demonstrate and support the initial thesis of his paper, namely, that the dissemination of
internet information due to its global nature commits all informational agents to
epistemological and ethical principles which are universally binding.
Customer relationship management information systems (CRM-IS) and the realisation of
moral agency by Christopher Bull and Alison Adam deals with the problem of ethical design
of IS. The paper particularly examines how the design of characteristics and use of practices
incorporated in CRM-IS impact on the expression and realisation of moral agency within
organisations. Bull and Adam found that some characteristics and practices within CRM-IS
can restrict the expression and realisation of moral agency in organisational life, resulting in a
number of problems. They finally argue for a greater consideration of MacIntyres virtue
ethics approach which emphasizes the importance of moral goods defined with respect to a
community engaged in a practice; which he calls internal goods or goods of
excellence rather than focusing on practice independent obligation of a moral agent
(deontological ethics) or the consequences of a particular act (utilitarianism). Bull and Adams
claim that MacIntyres ethical approach would effectively respond to such challenges
provided by CRM-IS.
We believe that these three papers provide a fresh approach and a novel standpoint in the
growing legal and ethical problems rising from using IS in organizations. In fact, as IS tend to
be applied to an ever-increasing number of human activities, more ethical and legal problems
for users, IS practitioners and professionals, and policy makers will unfold. In our opinion,
these papers rightly argue that these problems need to be dealt with through social
cooperativeness, organisational openness, universality of values, and sense of communality.
Finally, we are grateful to the chairs of the ten tracks and the external referees, for their
thorough work in reviewing submissions with expertise and patience, and the president and
the members of the ItAIS steering committee for their strong support and encouragement in
the organization of ItAIS 2008.
Antonio Marturano, Alessandro DAtri
Themed Section Editors