| Professor: | Eric Santanen |
| esantane at bucknell period edu | |
| Class Location: | Taylor Hall 203 |
| Class Times: | MW 3:00pm - 4:22pm |
| Office Location: | 206 Taylor Hall |
| Office Hours: | MW 1:00p-3:00p or appt |
| Required Text: | A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in Computing 3rd edition by Sara Baase Computer Ethics by Deborah G. Johnson, (c) 2001, ISBN 0-13-083699-0 |
| Course Web Page: |
Course Overview:
The power and persuasiveness of computer technologies is well appreciated by now. They have provided new freedoms, fresh opportunities, and material benefits. But these technologies also contribute to the threat of nuclear war, climate modification, and loss of freedom, along with the heightened risks and ethical dilemmas. The scope of these social changes is so broad that it is difficult for us to see it clearly. This course is organized as a survey of social issues in computing. It is designed to stimulate reflection upon the social and ethical issues provoked by current and projected uses of computers.
Throughout the semester, topics from the text will be supplemented with examples and cases from real-world organizations as they appear in news and trade magazines such as InformationWeek, InternetWeek, Business Week, Fortune, etc (there are more links to online periodicals here). It is important to keep in mind that this syllabus is just a plan for the semester. As most plans go in life, the final product may vary slightly from the original vision. We will use this flexibility to our advantage.
Goals of This Course:
The goal of this course is to make you aware of how computers affect society and to prepare you to make your own informed decisions on how computers ought to be used. We can't stop the computer revolution, but the decisions we make now can determine the direction it will take. While there are very few cut-and-dry answers to questions on this topic, the more you know about the circumstances, the better able you will be to make the right choices in your careers. Specific objectives of this course include:
Computer Account:
E-mail will be an important communication channel for this course. Please be sure to check it often and keep your inbox from overflowing, which prevents messages from getting through.
Grading:
| Participation | 40% |
| Class Presentations | 30% |
| Media Notebook | 30% |
Total |
Attendance & Participation:
This is a seminar type course, which means that class will be discussion based as opposed to lecture. Attendance and active participation (initiating and responding to in-class discussions) will be a major component of your grade in this class. In order to have an energetic discussion, all students are expected to be prepared for each class by carefully reading the assigned chapters ahead of time. Some of the readings are long and complex. Be sure to set aside enough time to read them thoroughly. From time to time, and when I feel that our discussion of materials has been especially poor, I have been known to give pop quizzes. When they occur, quizzes tyipcally occupy a large percentage of your class participation grade because if you are not prepared, you cannot participate. Quizzes are usually short but lethal for those that don't keep up.
Class Presentations:
During the semester, you will have the opportunity to work with one other person in class to make a presentation and lead the discussion on the assigned chapters for the week. The two people assigned to each topic will be expected to work together to coordinate the presentation, take the lead on discussing that topic, and integrate various materials. I will do the presentation and integration of the first week's topic myself. For your topics, you may use whatever method of presentation/discussion you wish. You may also integrate into your discussion articles from your media notebook that correspond with your topic, short clips from popular movies, news articles, materials found at other web sites, role playing scenarios, etc. You are welcome to discuss any aspect of your presenation with me beforehand.
The only restriction on this process is that in coordinating any topic, you must work with someone who is not the same major as yourself. For example, a Computer Science major may present a topic with a Management major, and a Management major may present a topic with an Accounting major, but two Management majors may not work together.
If you find that you must travel during the semester for an interview which conflicts with your presentation date, it is your responsibility to find someone in class to switch dates and topics with. Please note that each switch will affect at least 3 other people in class, so I recommend this action only sparingly!
Media Notebook:
The purpose of the media notebook is to increase your awareness of media information about the social issues of computing. The notebook will consist of four or five typed descriptions of newspaper items, magazine articles, television shows, movies, books, cartoons, or any other media item about computers. The articles must focus on the social aspects of computers. Each article should include its its complete bibligraphy (author, source, the date it appeared, and page numbers, etc). For each article, write a brief summary explaining the main points and several paragraphs on the social issues raised by technology. One page reviews are preferred; two page maximum. The articles reviews are due every three weeks. For television programs, advertisements or movies, describe the events and social issues of computing raised by the event. Organize your material in a meaningful way, for example (but not limited to), according to the schedule of topics for this course. Finally, all of your material should be dated during the last 3 years. Do not go to the library and copy old microfilms of newspapers or magazines.
Academic Integrity:
The field of Information Systems is highly collaborative in nature. Individuals and organizations frequently work together to achieve results that are impossible to achieve alone. We will see many examples of this during the semester. However, exams in this course will be completed and graded individually. Collaboration during an exam will be considered cheating.
Another topic related to cheating is that of not providing proper citation to work which is not your own. During this course, you will be exposed to a wide variety of materials and sources of information. It is perfectly acceptable to integrate the work of others into your project papers and presentations, so long as the original source of the information is properly acknowledged. Ideas of others that are not properly acknowledged constitutes plagiarism and will be viewed as cheating.
Cheating is a very serious offense to academic, personal, and professional integrity. All incidences of cheating will be referred to the Associate Dean's office and handled according to Bucknell University policy.
Course Schedule:
The schedule on the main course web page will serve as a guide for the different topics related to social, legal, and ethical issues surrounding Information Systems that we will examine during the semester. Our schedule will have some wiggle room that affords us some flexibility during the semester to provide various levels of detail for certain topics or to discuss other topics as they may appear in the news. Therefore, from time to time we may make small deviations from this schedule.