Computing & Society

In this class, you will learn about:

Ethics. What do "right" and "wrong" mean anyway? How is "ethical" different from "legal"? We'll learn about several philosophical approaches to ethics including utilitarianism, Kantianism, stakeholder analysis, and virtue ethics. The goal is for students to be able to address ethical dilemmas with reasoned arguments, grounded in a combination of these ethical theories.
Professional Ethics. What special responsibilities do we have as computing professionals? What do the Software Engineering Code of Ethics and ACM Code of Ethics say, and how can we use these in our daily practice?
Computing and Society. In what ways does computer technology impact society? We'll talk about a host of issues including privacy, intellectual property, and freedom of speech.

Instructor

Professor Jimeng Sun (jsun at cc dot gatech dot edu, please use CS4001: as the first words in the subject line)
Office Hours: After class OR schedule via email appointment

Teaching Assistant

Sandesh Adhikary
email: adhikary.sandesh@gatech.edu
(please use CS4001: as the first words in the subject line)
Office Hours: After class OR schedule via email appointment

Class Time/Location:

Tuesday/Thursday 9:30p – 10:45PM.
Location: Coll of Computing 102

Text & Reading Material.

Ethics for the Information Age, [Quinn] by Michael J. Quinn, M., 5th Edition (or later edition), Addison Wesley 2012
Other material available online through course website

Grading Scheme

Class Attendance & Participation (20%)
Homework (30%)
Term Paper (30%)
- proposal (5%)
- draft (10%)
- final paper (15%)
Presentation (20%)
- proposal presentation (5%)
- final presentation (15%)
All of the above subject to modifications, which will be announced in class.

Policies

Class attendance is required. Late by 15 minutes, counts as an absence. Legitimate reasons for being excused from class include, personal issues, health (keep those germs away from class), interview, conference travel, etc. Traveling and exploring, assignments due in other classes, out to pick up friends, and other such excuses not accepted. Please inform both instructor and TA of a planned absence via email before class.
Assignments will be graded on a list of criteria (specified on the assignment) such as quality of writing, completeness, insight into technical issues, insight into social issues, etc. Assignments are due at the start of class on the day they are due.
Late Assignments: Each student is allowed 2 days of late submission, to be USED for homework and term paper. You can use these 2 days for any assignment or project. Once you have used up your late days, late assignments will be penalized at a rate of 10% per day. Assignments more than 5 days late will not be accepted.
During lectures no internet-enabled devices (notebooks, smartphones, tablets, etc.) are permitted, unless a class activity requires them. While this may sound strict and weird there are good reasons for banning devices in the classroom: messengers and notifications are designed to grab your attention and are de-facto irresistible. Also, note-taking by hand versus on your computer has been shown to be more efficient for learning (also see this news story). If a student is seen surfing the web during class, or chatting with someone, or emailing, then points will be deducted from the class attendance and participation portions of the grade (3% for each infraction, with a total of 3 max after which the whole class participation grade will be lost).
Cellphones in class: Please turn your cellphone and other mobile devices to “silent” mode during class. Thanks.
This class abides by the Georgia Tech Honor Code. All assigned work is expected to be individual, except where explicitly written otherwise. You are encouraged to discuss the assignments with your classmates; however, what you hand in should be your own work. If any work product was produced based on discussions with someone else (in the class OR outside), please specify clearly in the final turn-in.