Ethics, Social, and Legal Aspects on the Electronic Frontier

CECS 311

Syllabus/Course Outline
Spring 2012

Instructors:

Overview:
This class will examine some of the legal, ethical and social issues associated with computer science, information technology, public and private networks including the Internet⁽³⁾.  The balancing of the needs and interests of individuals or groups against those of other individuals or groups, including business, economic, professional, individual, governmental and social interests, is a focus of the class as this balancing impacts the social, ethical and legal aspects of information technology. The course will provide an overview of the legal system and ethical decision making, highlight legal issues including selected cases (both case law and case studies) and discuss how these relate to the individuals planning computer science/computer engineering careers as well as discuss whether computer science/information technology should be treated as a profession. Class discussions will provide a forum for these issues as well as the competing interests and rights of individuals, groups, and the government.

Class participation, technical writing, and oral presentations associated with the service learning project are integral components of the course.

Course Objectives:
A student successfully completing the course should:  

·         be familiar with and able to apply selected codes of ethics/professional conduct,

·         identify potential civil or criminal liability arising from the use of technology, including invasions of public and private rights relating to 

§  Intellectual property

§  Privacy and/or personal injury

§  State/government power and its limits

·         communicate in written and oral form an analysis of law and fact situations problems in computing and technology (e.g., civil or criminal liability, unethical conduct.)

·          advocate for a particular solution, position or analysis relating to such issues

·           develop and implement a service learning/team project including a final effective group presentation on the efforts, findings and results of your team.

Course Requirements and Grade Components

1.      35% for Participation- Participation is very important to this class. Class participation, short case or other presentations and online discussions contribute 35% of the grade.

Attendance will be taken at each class session. 

You will write a minimum of two to three electronic comments on the selected topics discussed during the course of the semester.

If you are not in class, you cannot receive credit for in-class participation. The extent to which you are prepared for class and make constructive contributions to class discussion (both in class and electronically) will be a significant factor in class participation. Sharing your expertise and/or outside research, when appropriate and pertinent, will also be given weight. Note: attendance alone - without contribution in class and submission of electronic comments - is not considered as participation.

Students are to act respectfully towards each other and the instructors/guest speakers. Students will refrain from ad hominem argument in their responses.

Assignments may be given to a student, or group of students, to do additional reading or research on a particular topic and to share pertinent items of this supplementary reading/research with the class. For example, a student might be asked to read supplemental readings, to do research on the web for pertinent materials, and to report to the class (in person or electronically) about their findings.  Students will also be asked to do peer review of the work of other students in the class as a part of class participation.

Each of you will be a member of at least one team/group. Your team/group will be required to give a least one class presentation.  (See Team Project below.) You should get to know the members of your team/group and may call upon them for advice, analysis and support where needed (unless the assignment is to be only your work.)

2.      30% for Student Papers - The papers will constitute 30% of the grade for the course. Students will be required to submit a final research paper (7-10 typed pages).  Format is to be 12-point Times Roman or Arial font, one inch margins, double-spaced pages (except for quotations which are single spaced) exclusive of title page (unnumbered) and references/bibliography, in English. The research papers must address legal, ethical and social issue(s) associated with computer science, information technology or networks.  Topics must be approved in advance by the instructor(s).

The first outline of your research paper will be submitted in a review process to another class member who will critique it for ideas and organization.  In such case, the critique would be a factor in the grade of the person doing the critique and the outline and how they address the critique in their paper would be a factor in the grade of the person receiving the critique.

The first draft of your paper will be submitted in a review process to another class member who will critique it for ideas, organization, clarity, objectivity, logic, grammar and spelling. In such case, the critique would be a factor in the grade of the one giving the critique and the first draft would be given a recommended grade with suggestions for improvement by the instructor(s).

The first draft of the research paper is expected to be 9 -12 typed pages (which does not include title and references/bibliography).  The final paper is expected to be 7-10 concise pages, exclusive of title page and bibliography.  Your name should be included on the title page.   Both a hard copy and an electronic final version are to be provided.

In accordance with Plagiarism Prevention within section 14 of the Academic Policies and Procedures/Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities (included below), you are advised that the paper you submit for this class may be submitted to plagiarism-prevention software.  You are encouraged to use SafeAssign available via Blackboard to self check your paper for plagiarism. See http://louisville.edu/delphi/blackboard/bb-files/safeassign/SafeAssgn_general_student.doc/view  for details.  You may wish to also visit http://www.plagiarism.org/.

Plagiarism Prevention 

Instructors may use a range of strategies (including plagiarism-prevention software at the university) to compare student works with private and public information resources in order to identify possible plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Comparisons of student works may require submitting a copy of the original work to the plagiarism-prevention service. The service may retain that copy in some circumstances.  Academic units or programs may establish a more rigorous standard of review or consent, which will be noted in the relevant guidelines.

3.      25% for Community Engagement/Service Learning Team Project - The project including the final team presentation will comprise 25% of the class grade. All team members are expected to participate in the final team presentation. Preparation of the content and/or multimedia presentation alone is not sufficient.

This community engagement/service learning/community-based learning component will require you to examine:

a. impact of computing on everyday life and the cultural significance of computing,
b. your professional and ethical responsibilities relating to computing and relevant commercial and social policy and

c. how to beneficially optimize messy situations locally as they relate to computing and community.

You will work with community residents and partners to address issues relating to competent, effective and ubiquitous computing in America. This may entail your efforts to learn, build and teach on the effective use of computing as well as the use of research data to assess your learning and the effectiveness of your efforts for aiding the community. As the final team project assignment for the class, you will present to the class on your efforts, findings and results.

The focus of this service learning experience is to apply your knowledge of computing, your skills at learning what you don’t know, reasoning and management/design principles to identify the needs of the community and its people that they may use computing more effectively. This may involve training community members to use or install computing technology or your installation of systems combined with teaching on use and maintenance.

In collaboration with each other and partners, which could include case workers, service administrators, senior citizens,  K- 12 students and teachers, adults, and employees and constituencies of non-profit agencies, you will develop needs analyses and write and implement solutions to meet the training and technological needs. These may involve tutoring in basic computer literacy, multimedia production, networking, and other computer applications. You use skills and knowledge acquired in your work, avocations and studies to help fill significant community needs, while learning about and reflecting on community issues and computing.

The team project typically requires you to spend time at a location off University premises, at times other than scheduled class time.  While the amount of time will vary dependent upon the project and the community members time schedules, for planning purposes an estimate of 4-6 hours off campus from at least 2 off site visits should be anticipated.

You will:
1. reflect with precision on the objectives of computing and this effort
2. experience working and collaborating with community residents in an ongoing service-learning project
3. expand on the meta-application of computing systems by design and delivery of responses to matters as they develop,
4. structure and operate effectively within a team
5. make an effective group presentation on your efforts, findings and results.

You will create and work in teams for this.

Project deliverables are:

1)    An analysis of the computing needs of the target population or organization,

2)    A plan for meeting those needs,

3)    Implementation of that plan,

4)    A written report and oral presentation of that implementation, your efforts, findings and results, and

5)    Reflective commentary and analysis of your efforts and the results of your efforts; this may include threaded comments, journaling and a “client” evaluation.

Team assignments may not be congruent as the problems may disambiguate over time and different teams may be tasked to address the sub-problems. Some possible project assignments are

i.              Assessing, researching, designing and delivering a training plan on effective computing to elderly citizens in one-on-one settings,

ii.             Assessing, researching, designing and delivering a training plan on effective computing to elderly citizens in group laboratory settings,

iii.            Assessing, researching, designing and deploying a satellite computer lab facility for a remote site for teaching and use or

iv.           Assessing, researching, designing and deploying service-specific software aiding the target community.

Project documentation will be developed during the course of the semester and will make use of online threads. Profanity is greatly discouraged, though we still permit rubber chickens, as appropriate; appropriate use of such is for you to divine.

4.      10% for Examination (s) or other Assignments - There may be 1 to 4 short exams/assignments (some may be announced in advance but some may not be announced in advance); these constitute 10% of your grade.  Some of these could be associated with the service learning/team project. (The instructors reserve the right to reduce this percentage and increase other components dependent upon the actual number of exams/assignments given to ensure the workload vis a vis the relative percentage credit remain equitable.) Typically when this occurs the class participation or team project is increased each by 2.5% and this component is lowered to 5% or if the exam percentage is reduced to 2.5%, the other 2.5% are distributed to the other 3 components of the class.)

5.      Grade Scaling

a.              The paper will constitute 30% of the grade for the course.

b.              The service learning/team project and final presentation will comprise 25% of the class grade.

c.              Class participation, in conjunction with the research topics and discussion presentations and online discussions, will contribute 35% of the grade.

d.             The remaining 10% will be assigned to other exams/assignments given periodically throughout the semester. 

The course will use the UofL Blackboard Class website as well as various web pages and/or an electronic forum.    Access to some of these web pages requires access to URLs outside the "louisville.edu" domain.  

 Assignments are due at the start of class on the due date unless notice is given to the contrary.  Late assignments may be accepted provided the instructor(s) is provided with appropriate explanation, but are subject to late penalties to be fair to the students who turn in assignments on time.

No Required Text: In previous semesters the following has been used as a required text.  It may still be useful as reference and background reading resource.

The course will use articles, various technology and internet law cases and other resources typically available via the internet.

For example, particularly online resources available on the World Wide Web (e.g., U.S. Supreme Court and Court of Appeals decisions, Library of Congress, Cornell University web sites) will be assigned as required or recommended as supplemental or reference material throughout the course.

Topics:
The course will deal with the topics outlined in the attached Topic Outline/Class Schedule with additional details provided on the UofL Blackboard class website during the semester. The tentative schedule of these topics is included; however, it is subject to change as the course progresses. Additional readings may be assigned per class period and topic time frames may be adjusted to accommodate guest speakers or the schedules of the instructors. Changes in the schedule and readings will be announced in class and/or an e-mail note to the class via Blackboard or the class listserv.  It is your responsibility to have read the material prior to the class period(s) in which the topic(s) will be presented or discussed and to be prepared to discuss the topics during class discussions.  If you have questions, regarding the assignments or when something is due, please ask the instructor(s).

Technical Requirements:
Each student will need an E-mail account to receive and transmit material relating to the class. If you choose to use a non-UofL e-mail account, you assume the risk of non-delivery. Each student will need access to a GUI based World Wide Web browser (e.g., Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer.)  Note that use of Blackboard may require use of particular browsers, release levels or browser settings.  A listserv (CECS311) for the class may be used for sending messages to the class and appropriate class related electronic Q&A or topic discussions. If used, the listserv will be a closed list available only to class members and those other individuals to whom the instructor(s) grant access. You may also be given access to an electronic forum such as that provided on Blackboard for the class.

As we are focusing on law and ethics, you are expected to obey all federal, state and local laws and regulations (e.g., copyright, patent) and comply with University policies regarding appropriate use of information technology resources (e.g., computer usage agreement.)  While students are encouraged to work together and learn from each other, especially during the service learning team project, cheating in any form on exams, essays/papers, or copying of homework or other (non team) assignments will not be tolerated. If a student has any question as to whether an assignment or class activity is one in which it should only be one individual's work, please ask one of the instructors.  The instructors reserve the right to enter a failing grade for the course for any evidence of cheating by student(s).  Reference Section 5 Academic Dishonesty of the Academic Policies and Procedure/Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities

Guest Speakers/Field trips:
You are encouraged to visit to the University of Louisville Law Library during the first weeks of the semester to get a feel for the legal resources available.  Law review articles can be a good source of ideas for your research paper.  It is possible that one or two sessions might be conducted off-campus at the workplace of guest speakers; however, we anticipate most (if not all) guest speakers will present in our regular class venue. Advance notice of such changes in venue will be announced in class and sent by e-mail to the class.  In addition, the service learning/team project will likely require your team to meet off site at the venue of the organization which is the focus of your service learning project. You will be asked to sign appropriate University release/permission forms to participate in these off site sessions.

End Notes

1. David King , an attorney, holds a Master of Engineering in Computer Science from the University of Louisville Speed Scientific School/J B Speed School of Engineering and a Juris Doctor from the Brandeis School of Law. He is an adjunct professor in the Computer Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) department.  He serves as Assistant University Counsel and Director, Office of Industry Contracts for the University of Louisville.

2. Michael Losavio is an instructor at UofL in the Computer Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) department and the Department of Justice Administration as well as an attorney practicing in Kentucky, primarily before the federal courts. He writes and consults on law and technology-related matters.

3. This course was originally modeled on 6.805/STS085 Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier, a subject offered at MIT during the 1995 fall semester by Hal Abelson, Mike Fisher, et al, to whom we are indebted. 

 © 2012 David D. King and Michael M. Losavio
Use for non profit educational purposes is granted provided the source is credited.

Last revised: January 8, 2012