Version 22 April 2008
Course homepage:http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/325/s08/
Instructor: Josh Tenenberg
Location: BHS 103
Class sessions: T/Th 2-4:15PM
Office: CP335
Office Hours:T/Th 12:45-1:45 and by appointment
Technologies do not simply happen, nor are they neutral in their effects. Technologies are deliberately shaped by the human hand, head and heart, and influence social relationships, economic systems, and political power. Conversely, public policies, economic systems and social relationships influence the evolution of technological development. It is important to recognize that technologies are created, explicitly designed. People make decisions about technological developments (e.g. should the library database save each patron's "checkout" history?) and the public policies that enable (or hinder) such developments (e.g. should the public fund the development of the infrastructure for the Internet?)
I see you as much more than "intellectual beasts of burden", not only as programmers writing code for other people's ends. Rather, I see you as moral agents, capable of autonomous judgement and political action. As a result of this course, I would like for you to have a more explicit and reasoned account for your own ethical positions. I would like for you to see how both public policies and technologies reify and embed ethical positions. And that in the absence of personal virtue at the individual level (including integrity and courage), and absent public debate and action on the social level, socio-technological development will proceed in the interests of those with considerable political power. This may not be in the interests of you or of the greater good. As technologists you have special responsibilities, since your ethics and your politics become embedded in the technologies that you will create. This course is designed to help you become more conscious of your personal and social agency, with the aim that the choices you make reflect an ethical concern for all life.
During this course, we will explore fundamental theories of ethics and examine evidence and argument for both truth claims and ethical claims. Writing will be your main tool for critical evaluation and communication. Effective writing is increasingly becoming an essential skill both of professional software developers and of citizens in a democratic and literacy-dependent world. This course is reading- and writing-intensive, and it satisfies the upper-level writing requirement for bachelor's degrees.
We will also examine specific socio-technical developments (e.g. electronic voting, e-waste, globalization and off-shoring of software development) having broad social impact, and which will serve as concrete applications of the ethical and sociological ideas explored earlier. As the public policies related to these topics are far from settled, we will examine some of the controversies surrounding them, the ethical theories and social implications embedded in both the technologies and their related public policies, and the avenues for individual and democratic influence on the development of the technologies and policies.
TCSS 143, 10 credits of undergraduate writing.
All assignments are to be handed in hardcopy on the date due, unless otherwise specified. Make sure that your name is on each sheet that is handed in and that any hand-in with multiple pages is stapled. In addition, all of the assignments except for the writings on readings and news stories are due softcopy via CollectIt.
For this and every other writing, please minimize the amount of paper you use. Please use small font sizes (10 point), single spacing, as few sheets of paper as possible, using the back sides whenever your printer permits. You should also feel free to print two pages per sheet if that will save paper.
For every assigned reading in the schedule (each entry in the "Reading" column), you are to hand in a writing associated with the reading. These writings are due at the start of the first class of each calendar week (i.e. Tuesday during the winter 2008 quarter), except for the first week, when writings are due on Thursday. For each reading, you are to write either a summary or a treatment. Which of these you do for which readings is specified in the schedule.
If a writing is not otherwise specified, you should do a reading "summary". This summary should be two paragraphs and provide an overview of the main topics or argument that the paper discusses. Your summary should be descriptive, i.e. resist the temptation to editorialize or state your opinion (save this for the next part of the writing).
The treatment has a particular "syntactic form" that you are to follow; it is not simply a summary. Please see the following treatment guidelines for a description of what is supposed to go into each treatment and the criteria used for grading it.
In addition to the summary or treatment, you should write a single, "reaction" section to your writings for the entire set of readings for the week, preceded by the heading "Reaction". That is, regardless of the number of readings, write a single reaction for the week. This section should be approximately one-half page in length (single spacing). Your reaction section should discuss your thoughts, opinions, and reactions to the papers as a whole, not just to the individual papers. Also, you should consider and how these papers relate to the papers that you have already read -- either in this course or in previous courses. What I am seeking is clarity of expression, specificity in your claims, and logical support of these claims. The purpose of this part of your weekly writing is for you to use writing as a way to reflect on what you are reading in order to make more sense of it, as well as to gain practice in turning thoughts into written text.
Your reaction section will be weight 50% and your readings will be weighted 50% (with each reading being equally weighted).
Use APA Style for bibliographic references and citations in everything that you write. Make sure to use the special format for electronic references.
Choose one significant science- or technology-related news story from one news source in each of the different categories given in the Internet-based News and Info Sources page (six stories in total). Provide full bibliographic information for each story in APA style, and write a one-sentence summary for each. Indicate the category of the news source for each of these one-sentence summaries. Finally, indicate the most significant single story out of the set for each week, provide a brief discussion of why you think it is the most significant, and include a hardcopy of this single most significant story with your hand in (make sure to put your name on the hardcopy). Be prepared to discuss these in class.
Note that you are free to substitute a media source more to your liking than what I have listed, but you should make sure that you classify it correctly into the categories (e.g. The News Tribune is not an alternative media source). Miscategorizations of substituted media might result in grade penalties.
You will develop your "position paper" in three versions. The specific requirements for each version of the paper are detailed in the Position Paper Assignment handout.
As indicated in the schedule, you will each do a brief presentation of your papers during the last week of classes. Unless otherwise specified, you will have one minute to set up, six minutes to present your thesis and a summary of your argument, and three minutes for questions. Your presentation should include between 3 and 5 illustrative slides using presentation software (e.g. powerpoint). In order to get full credit for your presentation, you will also have to be present for all presentations of others.
On the day in which version 2 is due, you will distribute your paper to two other students in the class (to be assigned). You will have one week in which to read the two papers that you receive and write a one-page review. Use the following review form. Bring in two hardcopies of each review on the due date; one for the student whose paper you are reviewing, and one to hand in to me. On the day in which the reviews are due, you will work in a group with your reviewers (who will also be the people whose papers you reviewed) to listen to and help one another refine your writing and ideas. Please bring two copies of each review that you write to class on the this day.
The primary pattern of interaction during our class sessions will be discussion, both in small groups and as an entire class. As such, this course will sink or swim based upon your participation.
A small part of your grade in this course will be based on your participation. You will receive full credit for participation if you attend most of the class sessions, you come prepared to participate at each session and you contribute to discussions through speaking and listening. Coming prepared means doing the readings and writings each week and having hardcopy of your readings and writings at hand at the start of each class.
In order to facilitate our face-to-face interaction and engagement, I will enforce a "no electronic device" policy during our meetings. This applies to all personal electronics such as cell phones, music players, and laptop/notebook computers.
Unless otherwise specified, each assignment will receive an integer score between 0 and 4, inclusive. Your grade on each assignment will be a weighted sum of the grade on each part. Your final grade for the course will be calculated by taking the weighted sum of grades on all work that you have handed in, and rounding to the closest 1/10th. That is, multiply each score that you receive by the weight of the assignment, add these together, then round to the nearest 0.1. The correspondence between numeric grades and letter grades (i.e., A, B, C, etc.) can be found in the UW University Handbook, v.4, Ch.11.
Here is a description of roughly what each numeric score means:
Each handin is to be handed in no later than the start of class on the specified due date. If you are unable to attend class, you can email to me your assignment prior to the start of class, but in order to receive a grade, you will need to bring in hardcopy at the next class session that you attend. Late handins will not be accepted. It is recommended that you turn in something rather than nothing, even if it is incomplete. With due cause, exceptions to this policy will need to be negotiated with the instructor; emergency documentation may be required and/or late penalties may be given, depending upon the circumstances.
If you would like to request academic accommodations due to a temporary or permanent disability, contact Disability Support Services (DSS) in the Mattress Factory Bldg, Suite 206. An appointment can be made through the front desk of DSS (692-4501) or 692-4413 (TTY), or by e-mail: dssuwt@u.washington.edu. Appropriate accommodations are arranged after you've conferred with the DSS Manager and presented the required documentation of your disability to DSS. For more information please see the Disability Support Services webpage at: http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/student_affairs/disability/.
The CSS mentors staff the Science Lab (SCIENCE 106) throughout the week. They can provide help with specific questions about specific classes. Please note, however, that they will not do your homework for you. Instead, they will help you when you get stuck (either in programming or in homework) and help you develop the reasoning skills you need to solve future problems. See the CSS Mentors website for information about when the mentors are in the labs and other information.
The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology offers academic and technical support for students at all levels of expertise - review, upper division, graduate and TA. For your writing, reading, study skills and public speaking needs, please make an appointment online at www.tacoma.washington.edu/ctlt/ or visit KEY 202. For your Math needs,assistance is available on a drop-in basis, Monday Thursday, hours to be posted. For multimedia or video projects, please visit the Multimedia Lab located in MAT 251. For student software training, please register at www.tacoma.washington.edu/CTLT/training/student/index2.cfm
I have established a course mailing list for course-related discussion, to which everyone in the class will be a member. The email list name is in the Email section of the course homepage. Please also read my policy on email list use prior to posting.