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| CSCI 301: Computer's Impact on Society |
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Prerequisites: Junior standing
Catalog Description:
Impact of computers and high-tech systems on people, institutions, organizations, and environment. Examines the following: law, medicine, education, government, data banks, privacy, computer security, changing work, automation, robots, expert systems, AI, social responsibility, ethics, war, conflict resolution. Includes weekly reading, midterm, and final writing projects. Weekly lectures, discussions, films, and writing. No programming. This is an approved General Education course. Formerly CSCI 110.
Course Objectives:
The objectives of the course are for student to:
- Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the legal and ethical considerations of new technologies, particularly with regard to human rights and responsibilities.
- Be able to effectively express one's positions regarding the ethical and legal considerations of new technologies, both orally and in writing, and discuss their impact on the individual, institutions, society, and the environment.
Course Outcomes:
By the end of the semester, students will demonstrate most of the following objectives:
- Describe computer applications that have improved health care and/or saved lives.
- Describe computer applications that reduce the need for transportation and discuss the social benefits of doing so.
- Describe computer or World Wide Web applications that empower people (help people do for themselves things that we used to need experts or large companies to do).
- Describe one way data are collected and/or used (with potential threats to privacy) that was not possible without computers.
- Define cookies (in the context of the Web) and discuss the ethical questions raised by their use.
- Discuss ways in which computer technology or software can protect privacy of personal information in databases.
- Explain the difference between opt-in and opt-out policies for determining whether or not a customer's name and address will be included on mailing lists to be sold to other companies.
- Explain the terms "invisible information gathering" and "secondary use," as they relate to personal information and give examples.
- Discuss privacy concerns about technology that locates people or devices they carry (such as cell phones).
- Discuss the uses of video surveillance cameras in public places and the potential abuse.
- Be able to present arguments for and against using the concept of ownership of personal information as a privacy protection.
- Discuss the issues surrounding the idea of assigning a property right in personal information as a method of protecting privacy.
- Present criticisms of strong legal privacy protections.
- Argue for and against a law requiring that each person be assigned a national medical ID number that can be used to access his or her medical records.
- Describe the differences between the free-market approach to privacy issues and the consumer protection approach.
- Describe the main provision of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) and how the situation differs from what it was before the law was passed.
- Explain points of dispute about the implementation of CALEA.
- Present and discuss examples of wiretapping by a government agency that was illegal or of questionable legality.
- Describe points of dispute about use of Carnivore.
- Discuss reasons that the European Parliament objected to Echelon.
- Describe two important uses (of different types) of encryption to electronic commerce.
- Present arguments in favor of and against the policy of the U.S. government of prohibiting export of strong encryption programs in the 1990s.
- Describe cases of serious accuracy problems in databases.
- Describe important points or principles for designing user interfaces in safety-critical applications?
- Describe one practice or action (other than insufficient testing) that can introduce serious reliability or safety problems in software development and give an example (a real case).
- Explain the flaws in the Therac-25 system.
- Argue in favor of and against mandatory licensing of computer programmers.
- Describe one computer system that increased safety of air travel.
- Describe weaknesses or flaws in the major climate models.
- Describe any one of the Internet censorship laws.
- Describe methods using computer technology, that parents can use to restrict access by their children to inappropriate material on the Internet.
- Describe new problems for libraries generated by access to the Internet from libraries.
- Argue both for and against requiring filter programs on Internet terminals in libraries.
- Describe specific ways the governments of other countries try to restrict access by their citizens to the Internet.
- Describe the benefits of anonymity on the Web, with an example, and describe disadvantages of anonymity, with an example.
- Describe both technical and legal methods for reducing the problems associated with spam.
- Explain the distinction between freedom of speech as a negative right (liberty) and freedom of speech as a "positive" right (claim right) and give an example.
- Discuss the criteria that are used by courts in determining when copying copyrighted material is fair use?
- Explain why software piracy is very high in some countries outside the U.S.
- Describe technical, legal, management or marketing policy methods for reducing copyright violations of software or other intellectual property, on the web and elsewhere.
- Describe devices or technologies that made copyright infringement much easier than it was before they existed and note which kinds of material could be copied more easily with each of them.
- Describe the main arguments both for and against the decision against Napster for copyright infringement.
- Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using licenses for software instead of selling copies.
- Explain what digital rights management is, why it is controversial, and give an example.
- Discuss a provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that generated a lot of controversy and numerous court cases.
- Explain the term "free software" as it is used by Richard Stallman and the free software movement.
- Explain the term "copyleft" as it is used by Richard Stallman and the free software movement.
- Explain how hacking and its related problems and issues have changed since the Web became widely used.
- Describe methods or technologies used to catch hackers.
- Give an example of an activity that might be considered "hacktivism" and explain why there is ambiguity about classifying it as such.
- Define "shill bidding" and describe one technique used by online auction sites for reducing it.
- Describe techniques used to defend against credit card fraud, including at least one technical and at least one non technical.
- Describe the kinds of computer crime committed by employees against their employers.
- Give examples of job categories for which the increased productivity of computer systems strongly reduced the number of people working in those areas.
- Describe the benefits of telecommuting, both for the employee and for the greater society.
- Explain the guidelines used for employer monitoring of employees who work on the telephone (e.g., customer service workers).
- Argue for and against allowing to read employee e-mail.
- Describe Luddite objections to e-commerce and computers.
- Describe programs, proposals, or services aimed at making computers and/or Internet services more accessible to people with low incomes.
- Explain the main principle of utilitarianism.
- Explain why professionals have extra ethical responsibilities.
- Explain a distinction between law and ethics.
- Be able to recognize conflicts of interest and explain ethical and legal implications
Class schedule:
Three hours lecture per week lecture time.
Accreditation Category Content:
This course addresses a number of criteria for accreditation, both for Computer Science and for Computer Information Systems. These criteria are:
CSCI criteria:
IV-15. The oral communications skills of the student must be developed and applied in the program.
IV-16. The written communications skills of the student must be developed and applied in the program.
IV-17. There must be sufficient coverage of social and ethical implications of computing to give students an understanding of a broad range of issues in this area.
CIS criteria:
IV-14. The oral and written communications skills of the student must be developed and applied in the program.
IV-15. There must be sufficient coverage of global, economic, social and ethical implications of computing to give students an understanding of a broad range of issues in these areas.
IV-16 Collaborative skills must be developed and applied in the program.
Relationship of Course to Program Objectives:
This course supports the achievement of the following program objectives:
- All students will be effective oral and written communicators and be able to function effectively as members of multi-disciplinary teams.
- All students will have an appreciation for the individual, society, and human heritage and they will be aware of the impact of their work on society and the environment.
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