A Consideration of Mason’s Ethical Framework: The Importance of PAPA Factors in the 21st Century: A Seven-Year Study

Richard Mason proposed a social framework for addressing the major ethical issues of the information age in his pivotal 1986 article “Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age.” In 2006, Alan Peslak validated the framework by measuring the current attitudes of students, IT professionals, and university faculty and staff toward the four key issues proposed by Mason: privacy, accuracy, property, and accessibility (referred to as PAPA). This study continues this inquiry into the seven-year period after Peslak’s research. Previously collected data was analyzed for 312 university computing majors taking a senior-level ethics course where Mason was taught and discussed. Demographic influences as well as differences over the period were considered. A single exam question administered consistently over the period was the focus. Results indicate, with Mason’s framework as a foundation, computing students can identify all of Mason’s ethical issues, selecting privacy as the most relevant issue of concern in their current environment. Age, gender, and computing work experience resulted in no differences in selection of relevant PAPA factors. All genders, all age groups, and all levels of computing work experience select privacy as the most relevant factor for society today. Privacy increased in importance over the seven-year period as the primary ethical issue for computing students. The ever-changing technology environment and new threats to society posed by these changes is discussed, including social networks, data breaches, consumer privacy, internet neutrality, and emerging technologies

The computing professional skills assessment: An innovative method for assessing ABET\u27s student outcomes

© 2016 IEEE. ABET (formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Education) prescribes a number of outcomes that students should attain by graduation. Among these are six non-technical skills such as discerning ethical, legal, security and social issues to the ability to engage in continuing professional development. Here we present the first and only direct method and measurement tool in the literature to measure the six ABET Computing Accreditation Commission non-technical skills for both course and program level assessment. The Computing Professional Skills Assessment is a discussion-based performance task, conducted through asynchronous online discussions, designed to elicit students\u27 knowledge and application of professional skills. Our trial has shown that the method can successfully measure the skills. This paper outlines the method and its implementation and describes data collection and findings

Teaching Ethical and Social Issues in CS1 and CS2

The discussion of whether ethical and social issues of computing should be explored in undergraduate computer science education has resulted in most academic institutions and educators agreeing that they are important topics that must be included. Further support has been provided by Curricula \u2791 [16], the CSAC/CSAB accreditation [2] and ImpactCS [12]. Many books [7, 8, 9, 10] and papers [6, 14] have discussed what topics should be covered and what techniques can be used either in a dedicated course or in modules across the curriculum. However, explicit detailed examples that have worked successfully, particularly in lower level computer science courses, are still rare. This paper will discuss several examples that have been successfully used in CS1 and CS2 at a medium-sized university

Designing a general education course on the societal impacts of artificial intelligence

Most colleges, including UTC, already offer an artificial intelligence course (CPSC 4440) as part of their computer science curricula. Such courses are meant to explain the technology behind these elaborate systems, but these courses often neglect extensive coverage of the real-world impacts of the technology itself. UTC also offers a course entitled “Ethical and Social Issues in Computing” that does convey the importance behind the advances of computer technology and its impacts, but this course is practically available only to computer science majors. There is no generalized and widely available course that covers the technological, economic, cultural, philosophical/theological, and ethical concerns that come with the implementation of artificial intelligence. My main endeavor in this thesis has been to review the literature of the fields involved and decide what collection of reading/film assignments best covers the necessary information when it comes to the widespread impacts of AI. I then constructed a course syllabus with clearly defined assignments and a schedule of topics. Furthermore, I discuss each decision in the construction of the syllabus and explain how and why each topic will be addressed when the course is offered in the fall semester of 2018. The final product of my research is this thesis, detailing the considerations that went into the design of the course; every anticipated discussion topic, reading, and writing assignment is laid out in detail, and the decisions for every area of the class are explained. A final syllabus for the course has been drafted as well as a completed course proposal form containing clear explanations of how this course meets the established purpose and learning outcomes of UTC’s Thought, Values, and Beliefs general education category

Placing computer security at the heart of learning

In this paper we present the approach adopted at the UK’s Open University for teaching computer security to large numbers of students at a distance through supported open learning. We discuss how the production of learning materials at the university has had to change to reflect the ever-increasing rate of technological, legislative and social change within the computing discipline, and how the university has had to rethink the role of the academic in the course development process. We argue that computer security is best taught starting at the earliest level of undergraduate teaching and continuing through in-depth postgraduate study. We discuss our approach which combines the traditional technical aspects of security with discussions on the professional and ethical issues surrounding security and privacy. This approach presents computer security and privacy in the light of relevant legislative and regulatory regimes, thus the students have a firm grounding in the relevant national and international laws. We discuss the importance of international standards for information security risk assessment and management and as well as the relevance of forensic computing to a computer security curriculum. We conclude with an examination of our course development methodology and argue for a practitioner-led approach to teaching

Debates on tech-related moral dilemas usign ethical theories to teach engineering ethics

A significant number of universities where engineering is taught acknowledge the influence on society and the environment of the scientific and technological practice, as well as the ethical problems it presents, and the need to provide their students with courses covering this as a subject. The accelerated pace of innovation in these fields amplifies the issue. Computer Engineering schools are no exception. So, the IEEE/ACM Computer Science Curriculum 2013, identifies social issues and professional practice as key knowledge areas that computer undergraduate students must learn. Students should be knowledgeable about the interplay of ethical issues, technical problems, and aesthetic values that play an important part in the development of computing systems. The authors have taught for many years an optional course about the social, and environmental aspects of ICT as well as ethics. In this paper, the authors propose an approach to study ethics in Computer engineering schools. The approach consists in providing students with general ethic frameworks to reason about moral dilemmas as well as providing the basics of deontology. The lessons are complemented with case studies where technology is a key factor. Students are assigned roles to work on the cases and in the end, a discussion is done in the classroom. After the lessons, the authors have observed that students are able to understand and use the tools provided by the teachers to reason about moral dilemmas.Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::4 - Educació de QualitatPostprint (published version

A Framework for teaching Ethics to ICS Students and Practitioners using Open Educational Resources

This project has exploited findings of a pilot study funded by The Open University's (OU) CETL known as COLMSCT (Centre for Open Learning of Maths, Science, Computing and Technology – http://open.ac.uk/colmsct) and carried out under the auspices of OpenLearn (http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn), the OU's open content initiative. The project has used the experience gained in that study to create a multimedia self-study course introducing ethics in ICS to advanced students and practitioners. The course has been made openly and freely available as an OpenLearn unit that can be studied, re-used and re-purposed by the wider community involved in the area

Information Systems Undergraduate Degree Project: Gaining a Better Understanding of the Final Year Project Module

The place of an individual project in the final year of Information Systems (IS) undergraduate degrees at UK universities is well established. In this paper we compare the final year project modules at four UK universities: the University of Brighton, the University of South Wales, University of West London and the University of Westminster. We find that the aims of the projects are similar, emphasising the application of the knowledge and skills from the taught element of their course in a complex development project, often including interactions with a real client. Although we show in this analysis that projects serve a similar purpose in the IS degree courses, the associated learning outcomes and the assessment practice varies across the institutions. We identify some gaps in the skills and abilities that are not being assessed. In further work we are planning to consult final year students undertaking their projects and their supervisors, in order to gain an understanding of how project assessment criteria are actually put to use