CS 181

Computers, Ethics and Public Policy


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General Information

Course Description

An analysis of the ethical, social and policy issues related to the development and use of computer technology. Topics include: Ethical analysis; Professional responsibility and accountability; Privacy; Intellectual Property; Risks and reliability of computer systems; Social issues and technology; Impact of the web; Open source; etc.

The goals of the course are to:

• Understand the current challenges engineers and computer scientists face in being socially responsible
• Sensitize students to the impact of technology on society and culture
• Gain an understanding of how policy decisions relating to technology are made and their impact

Please see Syllabus for details.
 

Intructor and CAs

Please see Contact Info.

Lectures and Office hours

Lectures:

Tuesday 4:15 PM - 5:30 PM Location: 420-041
Thursday 4:15 PM - 5:30 PM Location: 420-041

Office Hours:

Professor Johnson: After class, or by appiontment

Eric Mibuari: by appiontment

Biyun Pan: by appiontment

Prerequisites

Prerequisites for this course are CS106B or CS106X. We expect you to have advanced programming experience in any language. Although we will not do any programming in this course, it's important that you have an appreciation of the inherent complexity of programming to understand the relevant ethical issues.

Registration Procedure

All students who wish to take CS181 must submit an online registration form. The text of the registration form will be posted to the course web page as soon as we decide how many sections we need and assign section times. Read the message on the website, answer the questions on the registration form, and return the completed form by email to our CA by Friday, January 9.

Course Work

The required work for CS181 consists of the following:

Paper #1 Book Report on a book with subject relevant to the material in this course. The initial draft of this paper is due on January 20. Comments—both on the technical content and the writing— will be returned by January 27, with rewrites due on February 3.

Paper #2 The second paper required for the course focuses on the risk of computer failures in critical systems. The details of the paper assignment will be handed out on February 3, and the first draft of the paper will be due on February 10. You will receive comments by February 17 and must submit a revised version of the paper on February 24.

Presentation You and a partner will research and develop materials on some aspect of computer science that raises significant ethical or social issues. Your project will be presented at mini-conferences held during the last week of class. All topics must be approved by the course staff and will usually be chosen from a list circulated on February 17. The deliverables are as follows:

1. An abstract for the project, which is due on February 24
2. A detailed outline which is due on March 3
3. A 10-minute oral presentation at the mini-conferences scheduled during the last week of class (March 10 and 12)
4. A Powerpoint (or whatever application you would like to use) presentation with detailed notes of the materials presented.

Exams
Final: Wednesday 12:15 PM to 3:15 PM, March 18th
  Location: 380-380C

Grading

Final grades for the course will be determined using the following weights:

20% Paper #1: Book Report
20% Paper #2: Risks
10% Section and class participation
20% Presentation
30% Final Exam



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