Daniel

Social and Ethical Issues in Information Technology

CmSc 304 Fall 2011

University of Maryland at Baltimore County

Computer Science 304

0101 M........ 4:00pm-5:15am (Sondheim Rm 103)

FINAL EXAMS:

Section 0101

Instructor: Richard L. Wilson Office: 521 Fine Arts Office Phone: 5x3843

E-Mail: rwilso4@umbc.edu

Website: http://www.research.umbc.edu/~rwilso4

Office Hours: 8:00-10:00 Monday and Wednesday

11:00-1:00 Monday and Wednesday

4:00-6:00 Wednesday and by appointment

Teaching assistants:

Nancy Jeffreys

email:

E-Mail:

Office Hours:

Texts:

Texts:

Recommended

A Gift of Fire Sara Baase Prentice Hall, 3rd ed., Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2008.

CyberEthics, Richard A Spinello. Jones and Barlett Publishers,4th ed., Sudbury, Mass., 2011.

Handouts posted in Blackboard:

Ethics and Critical Reasoning in Engineering Ethics by Richard L. Wilson

A BRIEF GUIDE TO ETHICAL THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES by Richard L. Wilson

Ethics and Critical Reasoning in Engineering Ethics PowerPoint by Richard L. Wilson

Course Description:

This course gives students an introduction to social, ethical, and political issues involving information technology and introduces a framework for assessing and dealing with these issues. The ethical discussion introduces analysis based upon traditional ethical principles and the ACM code of ethics. The first goal of the course is to familiarize students with the social issues arising in Information Technology (IT), Information Systems (IS), and Computer Science (CMSC). The second goal is to introduce students to major moral theories and their implications, the nature of moral reasoning and argumentation, and how these apply to issues in IT, IS, and CMSC. Our course focuses on written analysis of real world cases and an extensive written research project. Due to the amount of writing involved in this course...