CS 440 - Social, Legal and Ethical Issues in Computing
Fall 2007
BA 254 MW 5:30-6:45pm

Kris Stewart, Professor
stewart [at] rohan.sdsu.edu
Computer Science Department
San Diego State University

Office Hours: CG 535 MW 4:00-5:00pm or by appointment
Course Prerequisite: CS108 Intermediate Computing Programming

01Oct07 - upd

Blackboard (Bb) at SDSU

Fall 2007 Calendar of Events [This will be updated as the semester proceeds.] Authors Calendar for Semester
Archive of bB email from Instructor

CS 440 Social, Legal and Ethical Issues in Computing (SDSU Catalog)
Impact of computers, applications, and benefits, copyright, privacy, computer crime, constitutional issues, risks of computer failures, evaluating reliability of computer models, trade and communications in the global village, computers in the workplace, responsibilities of the computer professional.

CS 440 provides opportunities to study and better understand how our profession, Computer Science, contributes to our world. We will cover most of the text book through readings and class discussions. As the semester progresses, you will be expected to develop your own answers to the following questions, and provide evidence to support your answer:

How does society interpret the place of computers in an individual's life?
How does the computing professional respond to the expectations of society?
How can you start the Life-Long process to remain current in your field?

US Dept Justice CyberCrime, an extensive resource kept up-to-date

Ch1 Unwrapping the Gift [27Aug07] Carefully read for Wednesday/Look at Exercises for Class Discussion

Ch2 Privacy and Personal Information [29Aug07] Carefully read for next Wednesday/Look at Exercises for Class Discussion

Archive of bB email from Instructor

Required Activities:

  • Student Critical Reading / Feedback on Another Student's Term Paper [10%]

  • Final Exam [20%] 15Dec07 8am-10am (Saturday)
    Do You Need Your Own Student ROHAN Account? www-rohan.sdsu.edu/0500stud.html (Student Rohan Application)
    scc.sdsu.edu/ Student Computing Center; www-rohan.sdsu.edu/policy.html Student Responsibility Academic Computing

    TurnItIn will be used in this course by the instructor to provide a digital check that student work is original and created only by them. 

    “Students agree that by taking this course all required papers may be subject to submission for
textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers
will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the
purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. You may submit your papers in such a way that
no identifying information about you is included. Another option is that you may request, in
writing, that your papers not be submitted to Turnitin.com. However, if you choose this option
you will be required to provide documentation to substantiate that the papers are your original
work and do not include any plagiarized material.”