HCDI Foundation Certificate
Chapter 14. Ethics for decision users
Source note
Source basis - S1, physical PDF page 13.
HCDI governance ruleHCDI governance rule (Units 1.1 and 1.8) and general professional knowledge. If you receive HCDI reports, you take on duties, and they are simple. Confidentiality. A report is strictly private and confidential. Share it only with the recipients it was made for, and with HCDI's written consent beyond them. Integrity of the document. Do not edit an issued report, and do not circulate an edited copy. Protection of methodology. Do not copy methodology wording into your own material. Honesty about credentials. Do not present the Foundation Certificate as a practitioner credential or use the title HCDI Certified Practitioner. Check a credential against the register when it is open, not against a document. Respect for respondents. Do not seek to identify who said what. No pressure on assessors. Do not try to influence a score, a finding or a conclusion. If you are tempted to, you have misunderstood what the report is for.
Governance Boundary. An attempt to influence an assessment is an integrity matter. It is recorded and escalated, and it is not a negotiation.
Ethical use requires restraint
Basis - general professional knowledge and editorial explanation. External references are identified explicitly; this section adds no HCDI rule.
Removing names may leave indirect identification possible through role, location and event. Consider audience, purpose and source restrictions. Commercial pressure can also change an impression through apparently small edits. Keep commercial choices separate from the assessment record. Level 1 ethical understanding confers no engagement role or practitioner title.
Figure 1.14 Ethical use requires restraint. Original conceptual illustration; arrows organise the discussion and do not establish a validated causal effect or a scoring procedure.
Original exercise L1 E14
Basis - original fictional exercise. The organisation, events and any numbers are invented for learning. No HCDI result is assigned.
An executive circulates a party edition with names removed but a rare job title retained. A colleague asks for a more reassuring conclusion for financiers.
| Analytical task | Learner response required |
| Observation | Identify what the stated record directly establishes. |
| Inference | State the interpretation that still needs support. |
| Alternative | Identify a plausible alternative or missing context. |
| Authority | Identify the relevant credential or role boundary. |
Question - What are the concerns?
Worked answer: Part G, exercise L1 E14.