Schedule for CS 4001: Computing, Society, & Professionalism

Readings are subject to change. Check the online syllabus before reading.

Date	Topic	Readings	Assignment
8/23	Welcome & Overview
8/25	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)
8/30	Reading Arguments	Writing Arguments (WA) 1 & 2
9/1	Utilitarianism	Quinn 2.1-2.3, 2.7-2.8
9/6	Deontology & Social Contract Theory	Quinn 2.6, 2.9	Reading the Argument of a Current Article
9/8	Core & Logical Structure of Arguments	WA 3 & 4
9/13	Stakeholder Analysis & Virtue Ethics	In a Different Voice by Carol Gilligan, pp. 25-39 (electronic reserve) Virtue Ethics, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Quinn 2.10-2.11	Please come to class with a short quote from one of the readings that you find interesting.
9/15	Professional Ethics	Quinn Chapter 9 Article "Using the New ACM Code of Ethics in Decision Making" by Anderson et al. (Install the library's web localalizer to access.)
9/20	Freedom of Speech & Networked Communications	Quinn 3.2, 3.5-3.8 Skim the rest of the chapter	Applying Ethical Frameworks to a Dilemma
9/22	Do Artifacts Have Politics?	"Do Artifacts Have Politics?" by Langdon Winner (electronic reserve) Ethics of Worksplace Surveillance, a 4001 term paper, 2014 (shared with permission)
9/27	Evidence	WA 5 Academic Urban Legends by Ole Bjorn Rekdal
9/29	Privacy	Quinn Chapter 5 "Anonymized" data really isn't--and here's why by Nate Anderson in ars technica
10/4	Privacy and the Government	Quinn Chapter 6 EU-US Airline Passenger Data Disclosure (skim)	Term Paper Proposals
10/6	Discussion of Term Paper Proposals & Midterm Review		Come to class prepared to tell everyone about your term paper topic.
10/11	Fall break (no class)
10/13	Midterm
10/18	Responding to Alternate Views & Argument Structures	WA 6 & 7
10/20	Intellectual Property	Quinn Chapter 4, through end of 4.6
10/25	Software as Intellectual Property	Quinn Chapter 4, continued (4.7-end)	Term Paper Outline
10/27	Computer Reliability & Software Warranties	Quinn Chapter 8.1-8.4, 8.7-8.8
11/1	The Patriot Act	Wikipedia Articles (skim, except where otherwise noted): The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) FISA Amendments Act The USA Patriot Act National Security Letters Brandon Mayfield(read more carefully) Start watching United States of Secrets, Part One What you need to know for the final about this
11/3	The NSA and Edward Snowden	Finish watching United States of Secrets, Part One Watch United States of Secrets, Part Two	Add the name of a person involved in these events to the class wiki on T-Square. Pick someone no one else has chosen yet. Take notes on what is said about them as you watch the Frontline documentary, and supplement that by doing some research online (Wikipedia is adequate in most cases). Come to class prepared to tell the class: Who is this person? What is their background and what is their job? What role did they play in these events? Tell their story. What important choices did they make? What happened to them as a result? How would you evaluate their choices? Relevant people include NSA employees, politicians, lawyers, journalists, etc. This counts towards your class participation grade.
11/8	Voting	Quinn 7.5, 8.2.1, 8.4.7 EFF page on Evoting. Click on "cases" and read three. (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.
11/10	Term Paper Discussion	Come to class prepared to talk about your term paper	Term Papers
11/15	Work and Wealth	Quinn 10.1-10.4, 10.6 The Planet Money T-Shirt Project (podcast, please listen to all parts, a bit more than an hour total)
11/17	Visual Argument	Visual & Statistical Thinking: Displays of Evidence for Decision Making by Tufte
11/22, 11/24	No class--Happy Thanksgiving!
11/29	Two topics: Ariely & Simulation	Chapter 11 from "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely (electronic reserve) Seductions of Sim by Paul Starr Quinn 8.6
12/1	The Participation Divide	Quinn 10.5 Whither the digital divide? by Mark Warschauer
12/6	Final Exam Review

Readings and assignments are subject to change.