CS595
Professional Ethics and Communication in Computer Science
Spring 2014
Presentations
Reading Assignments
Reading responses are due at noon, 3 hours before class, which will
give me time to review what you wrote prior to class. Responses
should be sent to my gmail account, chris.wilt@gmail.com. Please
do not send me responses in Microsoft Word. You should use either
the body of the email, an attached PDF, or an attached text file.
-
- Due April 9, 2014
- Discussion groups are as assigned on Piazza.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read the following articles:
- Article
about Google scanning student data on the google
education applications, and how it may (or may not)
violate student privacy laws.
- Article
about self driving cars and insurance.
- Article
about teachers reading the facebook pages of students
and administering punishment based upon the content of
those websites.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- If a car without a driver crashes, the manufacturer of the
steering system should be liable for the damages.
- Google should not be allowed to scan student data.
- Teachers should be allowed to suspend students based upon the
contents of their facebook page, even if the contents of the page
are not posted on school computers.
-
- Due April 7, 2014
- You are to write a letter declining your second favorite job,
because you have been offered your dream job. You may either make
a fancy PDF of a formal business letter, or you may send the text
in an email, whichever you prefer.
- Discussion groups are as assigned on Piazza.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read sections 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, and 9.5 of the textbook, and John
Hooker's essay.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Question 23 from the In-class exercises in the textbook,
with the action, "Report the poor security to Company X".
- Question 24 from the In-class exercises in the textbook,
with the conclusion, "The company should make the announcement".
- Question 21 from the Discussion Questions in the textbook,
with the action, "Tell the hiring manager about her reservations".
- For this assignment, you should use the code of conduct as
described in the book to formulate your arguments. Section 9.5
provides a number of examples of the kind of argumentation I am
looking for. For this assignment, you do not need to follow the
previously established template, but should rather user a style
similar to that in the examples in Section 9.5 of the textbook.
-
- Due April 2, 2014
- Discussion groups are as assigned on Piazza.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read section 4.3, 4.7, 4.9, and 4.6.5 of the textbook, and the
two articles summarizing a recent supreme court case that was
argued on Monday, March 31.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Allowing software patents is immoral
- The Supreme Court should have ruled in favor of Grokster
in MGM V. Grokster
- The Supreme Court should rule in favor of Alice Corp in
Alice Corp v. CSL Bank. Information about this case can be
found here
and
here.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side. The format of the response is the same as for the
previous response. Note that for the court case questions, you
are to debate the moral merits of each side, which is distinct
from the legal merits.
-
- Due March 31, 2014
- Discussion groups are as assigned on Piazza.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read chapter 8 of the textbook. Unfortunately (or fortunately) there are no additional readings.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Consider Question 35 from the In-class Exercises form the book. The statement you are to consider is, "releasing the software on schedule is moral".
- E-commerce sites such as Amazon must honor the prices the advertise, and failing to do is immoral, and should be made illegal. This question has two parts that should be addressed. The first is whether or not the practice of advertising a price of $X and failing to honor it is immoral, and the second question is whether or not that should be made illegal.
- Companies that send incorrect bills are morally obligated to compensate customers who are forced to spend their time correcting the incorrect bill.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side. The format of the response is the same as for the
previous response.
-
- Due March 26, 2014
- Discussion groups are as assigned on Piazza.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read the following articles:
- Pentagon
Papers Introduction and
Article
about the final declassification of the Pentagon papers.
-
Debate about Edward Snowden. Note that the debate is
about 1 hour and 40 minutes long. I listened to an NPR podcast of the
Intelligence Squared debate that was 1 hour long, but I have
been having trouble finding a link to it.
- Enough about Thomas Drake to be able to field a reasonable
argument about his case. You must identify articles on your
own for this. The New
Yorker has an excellent article on the subject, but it a
bit long.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Prosecutorial misconduct aside, Daniel Ellsberg's actions
are immoral.
- Same question as the Intelligence Squared debate: Snowden
was Justified (and therefore acted morally). Note that this
is slightly different from the last question, which simply
asked whether or not Edward Snowden could reasonably be
considered a "whistleblower".
- Thomas Drake's actions were moral.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side. The format of the response is the same as for the
previous response.
-
- Due March 24, 2014
- Reading and discussion groups to be assigned.
- Identify your dream job and write a resume and cover letter
for this job. We will be critiquing these in class. If you will
not be actually applying for your dream job because you already
have something lined up, you may either use the materials you used
to apply for that job, or select any job opening you feel you are
qualified for and have a modicum of interest in. You must send me
an email containing the following items:
- Your cover letter for the job
- Your resume for the job
- A communication about the job. Note that this may vary,
depending on what the job is. If you are applying to an open
position from something like Monster or LinkedIn, please
provide a URL for the job description. If you are responding
to an email, please provide the email. The idea is we need to
know the context for your resume and cover letter.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- At long last, Monday is Edward Snowden and friends day.
Unlike other days where I assign specific articles, you should find
articles yourself to find the factual evidence you need to support your assigned position.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Edward Snowden is a whistleblower, and deserves all of the
protected afforded to whistleblowers by law.
- Chelsea Manning is not a whistleblower, and was correctly
convicted of espionage.
- Julian Assange ought to be classified as a journalist, and
afforded all the legal protections afforded to members of the press.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side. The format of the response is the same as for the
previous response.
- Due March 21, 2014
- Complete your 3 reviews online using this site
- Due March 19, 2014
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read Chapter 10,
article
about Yahoo eliminating telecommuting,
article about H1-B visas, and
article
about net neutrality.
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Eliminating telecommuting will increase productivity at
Yahoo (for this item, you do not need to identify a value, but
should instead make the argument that this statement is either
factual or not factual).
- Congress should eliminate H1-B visas completely.
- Network provides should be fined for prioritizing
traffic.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side.
- As discussed in class, your response should be formatted as
follows
- Identify the question at hand
- Define the standard of judgment you will be applying (one of
the sections from the book)
- Identify relevant concerns and parties
- Explain why one should choose your answer weighing the
relevant parties and concerns according to your chosen standard
of judgment.
- Identify a standard of judgment that leads to the opposite
conclusion, and explain why the different standard leads to the
different viewpoint.
- Argue as to why your selected standard of judgment is
superior to the one that leads to the opposite conclusion.
- Due February 17, 2014
- Complete your 3 reviews online using this site
- You are to have a copy of your full 15 minute presentation
slides ready for preliminary review. These must be emailed to me
before midnight; they do not need to be done before class.
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read Section 5.1 (Introduction), Section 5.2
(Privacy), Section 5.3 (Information Disclosures),
article
about defunding NSA metadata program
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Video taping someone without express written consent
should be made a misdemeanor.
- OnStar Navigation services should be outlawed across the
United States because of with its ability to remotely track
and control cars.
- Rep. Amash's amendment should be ratified and signed into
law.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side.
- As discussed in class, your response should be formatted as
follows
- Identify the question at hand
- Define the standard of judgment you will be applying (one of
the sections from the book)
- Identify relevant concerns and parties
- Explain why one should choose your answer weighing the
relevant parties and concerns according to your chosen standard
of judgment.
- Identify a standard of judgment that leads to the opposite
conclusion, and explain why the different standard leads to the
different viewpoint.
- Argue as to why your selected standard of judgment is
superior to the one that leads to the opposite conclusion.
- Due February 10, 2014
- Make sure you are prepared to fulfill your assigned role in
the meetings that will be held in class.
- Read Section 3.2 (Email and Spam), Section 3.4
(Censorship), Section 3.6 (Children and Inappropriate Content),
article
about pornography in the UK
-
Your meeting will address three questions:
- Anne the accountant should be formally reprimanded
(anecdote from the book).
- CIPA should be repealed.
- The United States should enact rules like the UK making
access to pornography an opt-in.
- For your response, select one question and do an ethical
analysis on the question. You should take the side you are
expected to take in class. Arbiters and meeting leads may select
either side.
- As discussed in class, your response should be formatted as
follows
- Identify the question at hand such that a "yes" answer
corresponds to the point of view you are taking
- Define the standard of judgment you will be applying (one of
the sections from the book)
- Identify relevant concerns and parties
- Explain why one should choose the "yes" answer weighing the
relevant parties and concerns according to your chosen standard
of judgment.
- Due February 5, 2014
- Make sure you have sent me an email claiming a topic. Even
if you claimed a topic in class, you still need to send me an
email claiming a topic.
- Complete the review of the TED talk using this site
- Due February 3, 2014
- Read Section 2.7 (Act Utilitarianism), Section 2.8
(Rule Utilitarianism), Section 2.9 (Social Contract Theory)
- For your response, discuss a recent newsworthy event that
involved computer technology and address the moral issues within
the news event from the perspective of one of the sections
covered. Your response should be long enough to communicate that
you understood the issues being raised in the reading.
- Please be sure to cite the source for any news article(s) you
elect to discuss by providing a link to an article discussing the
newsworthy event you discuss.
- As discussed in class, your response should be formatted as
follows
- Briefly summarize the article, so I have an idea of what you are
going to be discussing
- Identify the question at hand such that a "yes" answer
corresponds to the point of view you are taking
- Define the standard of judgment you will be applying (one of
the sections from the book)
- Identify relevant concerns and parties
- Explain why one should choose the "yes" answer weighing the
relevant parties and concerns according to your chosen standard
of judgment.
- Due January 29, 2014
- Read Section 2.4 (Divine Command Theory), Section 2.6
(Kantianism)
- For your response, discuss a recent newsworthy event that
involved computer technology and address the moral issues within
the news event from the perspective of one of the sections
covered. Your response should be long enough to communicate that
you understood the issues being raised in the reading.
- Please be sure to cite the source for any news article(s) you
elect to discuss by providing a link to an article discussing the
newsworthy event you discuss.
- Due January 27, 2014
- Read Section 2.2 (Subjective Relativism), Section 2.3
(Cultural Relativism), Section 2.5 (Ethical Egoism)
- For your response, discuss a recent newsworthy event that
involved computer technology and address the moral issues within
the news event from the perspective of one of the sections
covered. For example, one could argue that Edward Snowden is in
the right using Subjective Relativism. Your response should be
long enough to communicate that you understood the issues being
raised in the reading.
- Please be sure to cite the source for any news article(s) you
elect to discuss by providing a link to an article discussing the
newsworthy event you discuss.
I leave it up to you to define precisely what constitutes, "recent".
Events that occurred within the last year are clearly recent, although
older events may be used as well provided that they are significant
enough. A "newsworthy" event is one that was discussed in some
capacity by at least one news outlet, including news outlets dedicated
to following technological news.