Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computers and the Internet (2nd ed.)
by Sara Baase
Course Overview and Suggestions for Instructors
Contents of this page
Overview and course requirements
Our course is called "Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues in Computing." It is required of all Computer Science majors at San Diego State. You may choose to structure your course differently, but I'll provide a description of mine so you can select whatever aspects are useful to you.
We spend a lot of class time in discussion directed by the instructor in a more-or-less Socratic style. Topics vary somewhat each semester depending on current issues.
Students read almost all of the text and a variety of articles in a packet of supplementary readings.
Student presentation assignments, are an effective tool for getting students involved and generating valuable class discussions. I require that each student do at least one presentation. (Or they may satisfy this requirement by presenting a talk on their book report or term paper.)
I require a book report and a term paper. I sometimes give other homework assignments, usually a few exercises from the text.
I give 10 weekly 5-minute quizzes on the reading assignments (in our 15-week semester), one midterm exam, and a final exam. (Sample exam problems are available.)
Lectures, reading assignments, and class discussions
This sample lecture schedule (for a semester course) can be provided to your students as is (if you choose to use it) or you can copy and modify it as a handout. Reading assignments from the text, A Gift of Fire (2nd ed.), and deadlines for the book report and term paper are included.
Before beginning each chapter in class, you may want to check the updates for that chapter. Some of the exercises in the text can be used to generate particularly interesting class discussions. You may want to check the comments on exercises.
Here are a few notes and suggestions for the lectures/class discussions.
Guest speakers
Occasionally, I have guest speakers in the class. I use local people; so instead of giving names, I will list their roles to give you ideas of people to seek out in your area.
Our speakers have included: the head of a privacy rights organization based in San Diego, an information and mailing list broker, a cryptographer who was a party to a suit against U.S. encryption policy, the founder of an anonymous remailer service, various system administrators from our campus (one who was involved in a case about e-mail privacy).
Other ideas: the privacy officer from a large business in your area, a librarian who has dealt with Internet censorship issues, a member of a hacker group and someone from the local prosecutor's office who handles hacking cases, a computer security professional.
Grading (approximate)
The course grade is made up as follows: project/term paper: 20%; book report: 5%; other homework: 10%; oral presentation: 5%; quizes on readings: 10%; midterm: 25%; final exam: 25%.
Teaching large classes
Power Point slides to accompany the text are now available.
I sometimes receive requests for multiple choice exams, etc. that would be particularly appropriate for use in large classes. My classes are limited to 30 students, so I have not developed such material. I am attempting to make a list of instructors who teach large classes and are willing to share materials, ideas, or advice. If you are willing to be listed, please let me know. Also, if you would like to be listed as someone requesting such material, please send contact information. (Send e-mail to GiftOfFire@sdsu.edu.)
Instructors seeking material suitable for large classes
Nguyen Thi Thu Trang, trangntt-fit@mail.hut.edu.vn, Lecturer, Department of Software Engineering, Hanoi University of Technology (Nov. 2007)
Julia Tinsley, jtinsley@iuk.edu, Indiana University (Apr. 2007)
Melquiades Adames Ramos, madames@upra.edu, University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo (Feb. 2007)
Instructors willing to share material suitable for large classes