Schedule for CS 4001A: Computing, Society, & Professionalism, Spring 2011

Date	Topic	Readings	Assignment
8/21	Welcome & Overview
8/23	Case Study: Therac-25	"Medical Devices: The Therac-25" by Nancy Leveson Quinn 8.5 Radiation Offers New Cures, and Ways to Do Harm (New York Times, January 23, 2010)
8/28	Reading Arguments	Writing Arguments (WA) 1 & 2
8/30	Utilitarianism	Quinn Chapter 2
9/4	Deontology & Social Contract Theory	Quinn Chapter 2, continued	Reading the Argument of a Current Article
9/6	Core & Logical Structure of Arguments	WA 3 & 4
9/11	Stakeholder Analysis & Virtue Ethics	In a Different Voice by Carol Gilligan, pp. 25-39 (electronic reserve) Virtue Ethics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy	Please come to class with a short quote from one of the readings that you find interesting.
9/13	Professional Ethics	Quinn Chapter 9 Article "Using the New ACM Code of Ethics in Decision Making" by Anderson et al (electronic reserve)
9/18	Freedom of Speech & Networked Communications	Quinn Chapter 3	Applying Ethical Frameworks to a Dilemma
9/20	Do Artifacts Have Politics?	"Do Artifacts Have Politics?" by Langdon Winner (electronic reserve)
9/25	Evidence	WA 5 4001 term paper, on t-square as a resource
9/27	Privacy	Quinn Chapter 5 "Anonymized" data really isn't--and here's why by Nate Anderson in ars technica
10/2	Privacy and the Government	Quinn Chapter 6 EU-US Airline Passenger Data Disclosure (skim)	Term Paper Proposals
10/4	Discussion of Term Paper Proposals & Midterm Review		Come to class prepared to tell everyone about your term paper topic.
10/9	Midterm
10/11	Moving your Audience & Responding to Alternate Views	WA 6 & 7
10/18	Intellectual Property	Quinn Chapter 4, through end of 4.6
10/23	Software as Intellectual Property	Quinn Chapter 4, continued (4.7-end)
10/25	Visual Argument	Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making by Tufte	Term Paper Outline
10/30	The Patriot Act	Wikipedia Articles: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) FISA Amendments Act The USA Patriot Act Brandon Mayfield
11/1	When do People Cheat? Ethical Conduct in the Real World	Chapter from "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely (electronic reserve)
11/6	Online Voting and Voting Machines	Quinn 7.5, 8.2.1, 8.4.7 EFF page on Evoting. Click on "cases" and read three of the most recent. (Just the summary--you don't need to read the detailed documents.) Pick an article about electronic voting or risks of voting machines, and add it to the wiki on T-Square. Make sure no one else has picked the same one. Come to class prepared to briefly summarize your article for the class.
11/8	Computer Reliability & Software Warranties	Quinn Chapter 8.1-8.4, 8.7-8.8
11/13	Simulation	Seductions of Sim by Paul Starr Quinn 8.6
11/15	Term Paper Discussion	Come to class prepared to talk about your term paper	Term Papers
11/20, 11/22	No class--Happy Thanksgiving!
11/27	Work and Wealth	Quinn 10.1-10.4, 10.6
11/29	The Participation Divide	Quinn 10.5 Whither the digital divide?" by Mark Warschauer
12/4	Alone Together	Introduction to Alone Together by Sherry Turkle (electronic reserve)
12/6	Final Exam Review

Readings and assignments are subject to change.