ECS 188 – Ethics in an Age of Technology – Course Information – Winter 2013
Basic Information
- I am Phil Rogaway, rogaway@cs.ucdavis.edu.
Please see my homepage, www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway, for office hours.
My office is in 3009 Kemper.
- There are two sections:
- Section 1 is MWF 12:10-1:00 in 151 Olson
- Section 2 is MWF 1:10-2:00 in 151 Olson
Please go exclusively to your own section.
- There is also a scheduled discussion section on Fridays:
it is
just before class (11-11:50) for section 1 (159 Olson);
just after class (2:10-3:00) for section 2 (141 Olson).
We will use the scheduled discussion only infrequently.
- The course web page
contains important information:
it is where your assignments are posted, as well as announcements.
It’s a click away from my homepage.
You need to check the page frequently; I will assume that whatever gets announced there is seen by all.
- There is an obligatory final for this class.
See our online course schedule for when it is.
- There are no prerequisites for this class.
You must be willing to read a lot,
to write some, and to
prepare and give a reasonable presentation.
An open mind and politeness in listening to others will also serve you well.
I target the course towards junior/senior level undergraduates.
For science and engineering students, I recommend taking this class after you have completed the
expository writing or public speaking requirements that your college or major requires.
Reader
We will be using an online
course reader that I’ve put together.
Each day, you must bring the relevant reading(s) to class.
This is necessary because, for example,
I may ask you to read a passage aloud, or to explain some particular section of the reading.
You may bring the readings either as hardcopy or on a tablet.
I believe that the tablet solution will you only if you have
the ability to easilly highlight or scribble on the pdf documents.
Please do not to use a conventional laptop during class.
Course Structure and Goals
The course material will be broad, open-ended, and unlike
anything else the begins with an “ECS”.
Most of the class time will be spent with you guys talking.
At the end of the term, your evaluation will state the following:
My goal is to increase your inclination to think about, and act upon, the ethical implications of your
personal and professional choices, and our collective work as technologists. I’d also like you to read
a lot, to write a fair amount, and to become more comfortable participating in oral discussions and
giving an oral presentation.
Grading
The grading criteria this term is:
- attendance/participation (10%) (non-linear),
- quizzes + homeworks (40%),
- final paper + oral presentation (25%), and a
- final (25%).
Quizzes will not be announced. There will be a lot of them;
many, possibly most, days will begin with one.
The final paper and oral presentation will be on a topic of your choice, and you
will work in pairs on it. The final exam slot will
be used both for student presentations
(assuming some students want this time slot)
and an exam.
Requirements to pass the class include taking (and passing) the final exam and
not missing an excessive number of classes.
The grades I assign for this class tend to be high relative to other classes
I teach; if you understand the readings, do the assigned work,
and come to class each day, you should do fine.
Written Assignments
All written assignments done outside of class must be typeset.
I encourage use of LaTeX and discourage
use of Word.
(A free LaTeX implementation for PCs is MiKTeX,
and there are many others.)
All written assignments done outside of class must use
justified text (no ragged-right margins).
Select a reasonable font:
no Arial, indeed
nothing sans-serif, please.
Proofread for clarity, coherence, organization, diction, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and layout.
I get extremely distracted–to the point that I won’t be able to attend to
meaning of what you’ve written—by bad mechanics or sloppy work.
You don’t mean to torture me, do you?
Arrival
Each day, please arrange your desks in a circle before class begins.
Pick up your name card and put it on the front of your desk.
I don’t really recognize human faces and
the name cards are my trick that, eventually,
I start to feel like I know who you are.
Sitting in the same position each class is also helpful for me.
For a discussion class like ours, coming late is disruptive; please arrive on-time.
For purposes of marking attendance, you are counted as half here if you arrive late.
Academic Honesty
As a course in ethics, it would be particularly ironic if people are dishonest.
But let me say some things in this connection anyway.
All writing you do must be entirely your own (you can ask a friend
to proofread your work, but it shouldn’t go beyond that).
Your talk likewise must be entirely your own work.
Please acknowledge all ideas and quotations.
Use proper referencing.
Obviously you may not purchase your paper or presentation from any source.
Of course you can, and even should, talk to people
about what we’re reading.
Finally, it as an instance of academic dishonesty to claim that you
missed a class because of illness if that was not the actual cause.
Final Comments
If everyone comes to class having done the reading
and feeling ready and eager to talk about it, the class works well.
As with any seminar-format class,
you and I share the responsibility for making the class succeed.
Please take your responsibility in this connection as seriously as I do.
In truth, the class is a (rather unusual) opportunity that should not be lost:
where else are you seriously invited
to stop, step back, and explore the (sometimes grave) ethical issues
that we face as technologists and human beings—
and with someone who is not only a “serious” scientist,
but someone who actually cares deeply about these things?
I don’t see the topic of this course as an entirely “academic” undertaking.
I have no patience for moral philosophy as an academic discipline stripped
of the imperative to genuinely care and to act.
My class deliberately does not stay within the
traditional confines of “computer ethics”.
If you’ve come expecting some tedious prof to implore
you not to use file-sharing networks to get your music,
or whatever else you might imagine to be the ethical issues of interest to people in
a Computer Science department, forget it;
that’s not what this class is about.
What I myself would like is for both of us to come out of the course not just
a little more knowledgeable, but, maybe, slightly better, wiser, or more socially engaged.
That’s a lot to hope for from a class.
Let’s see if it’s possible to do anything in that direction.
Phil Rogaway’s homepage