Transforming the Academy: Knowledge Formation in the Age of Digital Information

Computer-mediated knowledge formation will profoundly change every academic discipline and pose fundamental challenges to the mission of the modern research university in teaching the new knowledge, securing sound methods for creating it, directing it to our deepest intellectual concerns, and insuring that we become wiser for it. Digital information, now measured in petabytes, is expanding rapidly; already most of it will never be examined by any human. Computers show us where to look and help us see patterns and extract meaning. How will this way of knowing impact the research university as the Age of Digital Information unfolds? To grasp the magnitude of the changes we face, it is important to realize that knowledge created with computer assistance goes well beyond classical knowledge formation rising from computer processing of digital information resources on a scale that could not be achieved by all peoples of the earth acting in concert using all their cognitive powers. Computers change the scale at which resources can be examined, and they already provide sufficient discriminatory powers that scale and speed compensate for their currently limited intelligence as they draw conclusions, make predictions, and participate in discoveries. The academy is not generally aware of the potential of this transformation, although some computer scientists and computational scientist are. The challenge for society is to assimilate digital knowledge and to improve the human condition by its application. We also seek to understand how it will shape our sense of self, individually and collectively as a society and a culture. In all of these tasks, the universities play an indispensable role for which they must prepare

Curriculum Subcommittee Agenda, October 6, 2011

Center for Women and Gender Dual List Change Department of Agricultural Systems Technology and Education Prerequisite Change, Course Description Change, Add University Studies Designation Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning New Course Department of Plants, Soils and Climate Title Change Title Change, Course Description Change Delete Course Department of Art New Course Course Number Change, Title Change, Course Description Change Department of Economics and Finance New Course Add University Studies Designation Title Change, Course Description Change Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services Inactivate Course Department of Communication Disorders and Deaf Education Title Change Credit Hour Change Course Description Change Elementary and Secondary Education Program(School of TEAL) Title Change, Course Description Change Course Description Change Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation New Course Prerequisite Change Department of Biological Engineering Title Change, Course Description Change Prerequisite Change Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering New Course Title Change, Prerequisite Change, Course Description Change Title Change, Credit Hour Change, Prerequisite Change, Course Description Change Course Description Change Delete Course Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering New Course Department of Languages, Philosophy and Speech Communication Course Description Change Title Change, Course Description Change Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology University Studies Designation Reactivate Course Department of Environment and Society New Course Delete Course Department of Biology Course Description Change Remove University Studies Designation Prerequisite Change Department of Computer Science Prerequisite Change Department of Geology Title Change Other Bachelor of Arts in Art History Changing the English master’s degree specialization in Technical Writing Plan B to a Plan C specialization Restructuring the Department of Engineering and Technology Education Enforcement of the rule that CI courses must be upper divisio

Curriculum Subcommittee Minutes, October 6, 2011

Center for Women and Gender Dual List Change Department of Agricultural Systems Technology and Education Prerequisite Change, Course Description Change, Add University Studies Designation Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning New Course Department of Plants, Soils and Climate Title Change Title Change, Course Description Change Delete Course Department of Art New Course Course Number Change, Title Change, Course Description Change Department of Economics and Finance New Course Add University Studies Designation Title Change, Course Description Change Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services Inactivate Course Department of Communication Disorders and Deaf Education Title Change Credit Hour Change Course Description Change Elementary and Secondary Education Program(School of TEAL) Title Change, Course Description Change Course Description Change Department of Special Education and Rehabilitation New Course Prerequisite Change Department of Biological Engineering Title Change, Course Description Change Prerequisite Change Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering New Course Title Change, Prerequisite Change, Course Description Change Title Change, Credit Hour Change, Prerequisite Change, Course Description Change Course Description Change Delete Course Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering New Course Department of Languages, Philosophy and Speech Communication Course Description Change Title Change, Course Description Change Department of Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology University Studies Designation Reactivate Course Department of Environment and Society New Course Delete Course Department of Biology Course Description Change Remove University Studies Designation Prerequisite Change Department of Computer Science Prerequisite Change Department of Geology Title Change Other Offering a Bachelor of Arts in Art History Changing the English master’s degree specialization in Technical Writing Plan B to a Plan C specialization Restructuring the Department of Engineering and Technology Education Enforcing the rule that CI courses must be upper division Electronic approval process for the course approval from Archiving previous Course Approval form

The Case for Anticipating Undesirable Consequences of Computing Innovations Early, Often, and Across Computer Science

From smart sensors that infringe on our privacy to neural nets that portray realistic imposter deepfakes, our society increasingly bears the burden of negative, if unintended, consequences of computing innovations. As the experts in the technology we create, Computer Science (CS) researchers must do better at anticipating and addressing these undesirable consequences proactively. Our prior work showed that many of us recognize the value of thinking preemptively about the perils our research can pose, yet we tend to address them only in hindsight. How can we change the culture in which considering undesirable consequences of digital technology is deemed as important, but is not commonly done?Comment: More details at NSF #2315937: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2315937&HistoricalAwards=fals

The proposal of adding a society value to the software process improvement manifesto

The use of computers has become ubiquitous and spread out to every part of our personal lives and businesses. Computer Ethics focuses on the questions of right and wrong that arise from the development and deployment of computers. Thus, it urges that the social impact of computers must be analysed. In software engineering, the Software Process Improvement (SPI) Manifesto was developed by groups of experts in the field and aimed to improve the software produced, by improving the process, the attitudes of software engineers, and the organisational culture and practices. The manifesto is centred on three basic values: people, business focus and organisational change, underpinning the philosophy of software process improvement; and ten corresponding principles, which serve as foundations for action. In this paper, we argue that SPI professionals, need to, in addition to fulfilling duties to the Organisation, the Business, the Employees who participate in SPI, and the People who will be most affected, broaden their obligations to include wider society. The impact of developed and deployed software systems is often beyond the organisation and affects the daily lives and activities of citizens in society. This paper argues for the inclusion, in the SPI Manifesto, of a fourth value titled Society, along with six corresponding principles. These half-dozen principles are based on traditional moral and ethical concepts, sourced from the field of Computer Ethics. This proposed revision to the SPI manifesto would explicitly espouse the notion of serving the public interest. It will likely help SPI professionals to remember that working in the public interest is also important in Software Process Improvement, thus, making the duty to society clear and obvious or evident

Challenges Faced by Technical Communication Educators in the Field of ICT- A Systemic Study

The article examines ways and means of using computers in technical communication classrooms, including the ways in which we address literacy and humanistic issues through our current instruction. Over the next decade and through the next century, we will face three pedagogical challenges as we use computer technology to support our teaching initiatives. A knowledge-based and globalized society would not be possible without ICTs (Information and Communications Technologies). The 21st century workforce and the institutions that prepare them for it must adapt to as much change as there is in ICT itself. As a global phenomenon, ICT is posed as a major challenge and an opportunity for television education. As well as the issues and potential solutions to their effective integration in TVET, the chapter describes TVET's meaning, philosophy, objectives, types of ICT, and role in TVET

Hermann Vinterberg og C. A. Bodelsen: Dansk-engelsk Ordbog 3. udgave. Redaktion: Viggo Hjørnager Pedersen. Gyldendal, 1990

Vinterberg and Bodelsen's Danish-English dictionary has now been published in its third, revised edition. As a natural consequence of the development in society as a whole, Danish and English usage has changed considerably since the second edition was published in the mid-1960s, thousands of new words have been added to both languages, and a range of words and expressions have undergone a change in meaning. The present review focusses on seeing whether these changes are reflected in the selection of entries and the translation equivalents offerede in the dictionary and concludes that, even though there are about 100,000 changes (of which approximately 50,000 are additions) in the new edition, a wide range of entries are not sufficiently updated. Given the development in computer software and lexicography within the last two decades, it must be concluded that the dictionary is not on the forefront of the development

Risk Management in the Decisional Process

The achievements of individuals have generated an attitude change toward risk, and the passion for gambling and bets has channeled itself toward economic growth, enhancing the life quality and technological progress. The capacity of defining something that will happen in the future and to choose between more than one alternative represents a central principle of today’s society. Managing risk helps us to orient in a large spectrum of decisional processes, ranging from investing capital to making a family, from insurance premiums market to whether wear a seatbelt. Long time ago, means of production, business administration, and communication were simple. Failures were often, but they could be solved without calling on a computer technician, accountant of investment adviser. Presently, the means we use are much more complex and failures can be catastrophic, with a devastating impact. We must constantly be aware of the failures’ probability and errors

On the Promise and Pitfalls of Optimizing Embodied Carbon

To halt further climate change, computing, along with the rest of society, must reduce, and eventually eliminate, its carbon emissions. Recently, many researchers have focused on estimating and optimizing computing's \emph{embodied carbon}, i.e., from manufacturing computing infrastructure, in addition to its \emph{operational carbon}, i.e., from executing computations, primarily because the former is much larger than the latter but has received less research attention. Focusing attention on embodied carbon is important because it can incentivize i) operators to increase their infrastructure's efficiency and lifetime and ii) downstream suppliers to reduce their own operational carbon, which represents upstream companies' embodied carbon. Yet, as we discuss, focusing attention on embodied carbon may also introduce harmful incentives, e.g., by significantly overstating real carbon reductions and complicating the incentives for directly optimizing operational carbon. This position paper's purpose is to mitigate such harmful incentives by highlighting both the promise and potential pitfalls of optimizing embodied carbon.Comment: 2nd Workshop on Sustainable Computer Systems (HotCarbon'23

Rankers, Rankees, & Rankings: Peeking into the Pandora's Box from a Socio-Technical Perspective

Algorithmic rankers have a profound impact on our increasingly data-driven society. From leisurely activities like the movies that we watch, the restaurants that we patronize; to highly consequential decisions, like making educational and occupational choices or getting hired by companies -- these are all driven by sophisticated yet mostly inaccessible rankers. A small change to how these algorithms process the rankees (i.e., the data items that are ranked) can have profound consequences. For example, a change in rankings can lead to deterioration of the prestige of a university or have drastic consequences on a job candidate who missed out being in the list of the preferred top-k for an organization. This paper is a call to action to the human-centered data science research community to develop principled methods, measures, and metrics for studying the interactions among the socio-technical context of use, technological innovations, and the resulting consequences of algorithmic rankings on multiple stakeholders. Given the spate of new legislations on algorithmic accountability, it is imperative that researchers from social science, human-computer interaction, and data science work in unison for demystifying how rankings are produced, who has agency to change them, and what metrics of socio-technical impact one must use for informing the context of use.Comment: Accepted for Interrogating Human-Centered Data Science workshop at CHI'2