This is the home page for CS 3111 Computer Ethics, offered at the University of Minnesota, Duluth by Professor Ted Pedersen.  

CS 3111 will teach you about ethics, and how computing systems and technology can reflect and amplify the beliefs of those who create and use them (for good and bad). We will also discuss how and why women have tended to be marginalized in computing as a profession. 

The class meets Mon 4:00 - 4:50 pm and Tue & Thu 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm. All class sessions are online via Google Meet at the following link :

• https://meet.google.com/atm-ghsh-jup

During our Google Meet sessions it is important that you attend via a reliable internet connection that allows you to participate fully both speaking and using your camera. Please be ready to have your camera on during break out room discussions and some of our class-wide discussions. You may want to consider the use of a blurring filter or virtual background to keep your surroundings more private. You will also need to be able to edit documents and slides in order to participate in class, so please log in with a device that allows you do do that. You should be in a relatively quiet location where there is not a lot of background noise, since we will have discussions that will be a part of. If you are on-campus you may want to consider the use of a library study room to attend class.  Also remember that ITSS will loan you a Chromebook if your usual device is not working.  

Note that attendance and participation both in person and on Google Meet are a part of your grade. This is not meant to be a burden, it it meant to say that your active involvement in the class is important for you and your classmates learning.  Our class sessions will be devoted to discussions and not lecture-based and will not be recorded. Please make sure you understand and follow our Participation Norms for Small Group and Class Discussions.

Our Syllabus contains all the administrative details about the course. 

Please see the Class Schedule for our daily plans for class and our assignments. 

We will use Canvas to submit assignments, record grades, and we'll take advantage of the Discussion feature it offers. I will also sometimes make materials available to you via Canvas Files.

Please note that CS 3111 is a Liberal Education class in the Humanities category.  While it is often taken by Computer Science students, it is open to students from any major who have met the prerequisites shown in our Syllabus. No specialized knowledge of computing, mathematics, or related areas is required to understand and do well in this course. 

We will be relying on three textbooks that are pictured below. You can find more information about them in our Syllabus.