CS 305: Social, Ethical, and Legal Implications of Computing

For this class you are required to prepare a presentation and a term paper on a topic of your choice.

Preliminary presentation slides and paper abstract

The Topic:The first order of business is to find a topic. You can pick any topic related to the course. Thus, it must relate to some social, ethical, or legal implication of computing. As with the ethical theories described in class, you will be required to present your viewpoint and persuade the audience/reader that your conclusion is sound. Some ideas can be found in the textbook (Quinn Ethics in the Information Age). Other topics can be found in Baase's Gift of Fire Book. There are also many topics online. Watch plagiarism very carefully!

Preliminary presentation slides: You are required to turn in the contents of the three required slides (see below). It should convey a sense of what you will be talking about in the 8-minute talk that you will be giving

Paper abstract: You are required to turn in an abstract of your paper. This will include:

• Title of paper
• The introduction part of your paper (this should convey a sense of what your paper will be about)
• A sentence or two of your "My Opinion" section so I have an idea of what you are going to be working towards.

Presentation

Your presentation will be on the topic you have selected. Your speech must meet the following specifications:

• It will be 8 minutes in length
• The slides must be in presentation form.  That is, not a cut and paste of your paper abstract.  The bullets ought to be meaningful
• The slides must include:
• First slide must include the title, your name, and date
• Second slide must include an outline for the rest of the talk, including the main points you are going to cover
• Last content slide must be a summary and conclusion
• References go on the last slide
• You must e-mail me your final presentation slides in PowerPoint or PDF format by NOON on the day of your presentation.

Paper

Your paper will concern a topic of your choosing. It can be any relevant topic that we talked about in class. Feel free to pick something interesting to you. Some examples might be the morality of music copying, the RIAA, DMCA, patents, ethical behavior.

Your paper should meet the following:

• Should be on letter sized paper, single-sided, stapled in upper left corner.
• Formatting: 1" margins all around, 11pt font, 1.5 line spacing
• The paper must be 1400-1700 words in length
• The paper should have at least 5 credible references at the end of the paper and must be referred to in the paper in a meaningful way.
• The introduction should clearly convey the purpose of the paper and must draw an opinion based upon a reasonable analysis of the data that you gathered for the paper.
• Your paper must include a short section entitled: "My Opinion". The purpose of this section is for you to draw your conclusion of the topic that you are investigating. It should have the type of opinion. In the past, this has included:
• Ethical - come to an opinion based upon an ethical theory analysis
• Extrapolation - prediction of future based upon some scientifically sound basis
• Legal - based upon some laws or legal theories

Grading will be based upon:

Following spec         25%

Grammer/Spelling 20%

Clarity 20%

Analysis 20%

My discretion 15%

Make sure you take the time to proofread your paper. It is important for a computer scientist to be clear and concise. Remember all of the poor instruction manuals you have read in the past! Plagarism of any kind will not be tolerated. You can reference existing works and facts, when needed, as long as the citations to it are clearly marked in the paper.