CS595
Professional Ethics and Communication in Computer Science
Spring 2014

Presentations

• Presentation 1
• Presentation 2

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:
  1. Your cover letter for the job
  2. Your resume for the job
  3. 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.