CSIT285L

Welcome to CS/IT285L: Social Issues and Ethics in Computing. The spring 2024 semester begins on January 23, 2024. This class is conducted on campus. Please check Wiser for your course time and location.

Please familiarize yourself with this website, as along with Blackboard it will be the main online resource for you throughout the semester. It is imperative that you click through all the links you see on the right side of the page (or at the bottom of the page on mobile) so you’ll know what’s expected in this class.

I’m looking forward to having you in class!

-Dr. P.

Welcome to the final Final Paper Workshop!

This class is designed is for you to have monitored, accountable writing time to work on your paper.

Since the class is optional, you can come and go as you please. You do not have to stay for the entire time.

Asking for help? Please begin by taking the time to formulate a specific question that shows your previous effort and reflection on the issue.

Suggested goals for today:

• Finishing touches
• Make sure analysis phase options are labeled with labels justified
• Check your references section and in-text citations. Do they match the APA requirements?
• Submit!

Welcome to the third Final Paper Workshop!

This class is designed is for you to have monitored, accountable writing time to work on your paper.

Since the class is optional, you can come and go as you please. You do not have to stay for the entire time.

Asking for help? Please begin by taking the time to formulate a specific question that shows your previous effort and reflection on the issue.

Suggested goals for today:

• Finishing touches
• Make sure analysis phase options are labeled with labels justified
• Check your references section and in-text citations. Do they match the APA requirements?
• Submit!

Welcome to the second (optional) Final Paper Workshop!

This class is designed is for you to have monitored, accountable writing time to work on your paper.

Since the class is optional, you can come and go as you please. You do not have to stay for the entire time.

Asking for help? Please begin by taking the time to formulate a specific question that shows your previous effort and reflection on the issue.

FYI: the final paper submission folder on Blackboard is now open. Be prepared to submit two files (both your planning document (outline, 9.3.1) and the essay format paper) in the same submission.

Suggested goals for today:

• Complete the introduction of your paper. Make sure role you are taking in the paper, and the specific decision you will be making, are both clear.
• Start writing essay version of paper.
• Term check: have you correctly identified, defined, and applied terms to your topic? Ask me if you have any doubts.
• Check your references section and in-text citations. Do they match the APA requirements?

Welcome to the first (optional) Final Paper Workshop!

This class is designed is for you to have monitored, accountable writing time to work on your paper.

Since the class is optional, you can come and go as you please. You do not have to stay for the entire time.

Asking for help? Please begin by taking the time to formulate a specific question that shows your previous effort and reflection on the issue.

Suggested goals for today:

• Make your topic choice. Which scenario, or which article?
• Make sure role you are taking in the paper, and the specific decision you will be making, are both clear.
• Outline: are all 9.3.1 phases clearly answered?
• Term check: have you correctly identified, defined, and applied terms to your topic? Ask me if you have any doubts.
• Finish writing outline.

11:00am, 12:30pm, and 5:30pm sections may ignore this post.

Hi Section 2 students,

Tuesday, December 5th is our first optional final paper workshop day. However, one of my research projects must be presented that day at a university conference, right at 4pm. As a result, I am asking that those who choose to attend class on that day pick another section to attend your workshop: 11am in McCormack 1-614, 12:30pm in McCormack 1-213, or 5:30pm in McCormack 2-404. You don’t need to let me know in advance, just show up at the class you choose. We will go back to our regular time and place for the remaining optional days as noted on the syllabus.

Thursday, November 30 is a regular, required day – same time, same place.

This evaluation is designed to provide information about the quality of this course to the instructor and department. All submissions will be anonymous and these questionnaires will be treated as confidential information. The instructor will not review your responses until after the final grades for this course have been submitted to the Registrar.

This class has changed drastically since its first iteration due to thoughtful student feedback on these evaluations. I take them very seriously. I’m especially open to hearing about your opinions on the pilot weekly write-up alternative program.

The department also has access to comments on these evals. If you were crammed in a small classroom this semester, or one that had dysfunctional HVAC, you may consider noting that issue in order to bring attention to it beyond my own efforts to do so.

Your evaluation can be accessed below by clicking on the correct class. We will set aside class time to complete this process, so you only need to do it on your own if you missed class on Day 24.

11:00am section

12:30pm section

4:00pm section

5:30pm section

As mentioned in the syllabus, “Students with a course average of 80.00 or higher on Day 23 may request via email to be exempt from the final paper on that day. Exemptions are not automatic and must be requested by Day 23 at 8:00pm.”

Unless you can travel in time, Day 23 has not arrived for anyone in any of my courses. Therefore, I should not have received any exemption requests yet. When that day arrives (November 21, for Fall 2023 students), THEN it’s time to check Blackboard for your weighted average and send the request email if appropriate. Please remember the 8:00pm deadline. There is effectively a 20 hour window in which you can send your request (12:01am 11/21 to 7:59pm 11/21).

Alongside Michael Claude, Gaius Dukuly is joining our courses as an embedded tutor.

He will be holding Friday Zoom tutoring sessions from 12:30 – 3:30 p.m.

In-person, he will hold tutoring sessions Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. on the 4th floor of Healey Library outside room 0031(H04-0031).

Students from any section can set up tutoring sessions with Gaius at his Calendly link, or ask other questions at gaius.dukuly001@umb.edu. He will also be present in the Discord server shared at the beginning of the semester.

Thanks for weighing in on our mid-semester survey! I especially appreciate those who framed their answers in a respectful way. Based on the results, here is how we will move forward:

1. Homework will stay the same. You must continue to bring a physical version of your homework answers to class, arrive on time, and participate in the discussion for full credit on homework assignments.
2. WW3 may change. If you want to complete the assignment like you did for WW1 and WW2, you can. A new option can also be substituted for WW3: The Weekly Write-up Alternative (WWA) quiz. DO NOT DO BOTH WW3 AND WWA. Pick one.

How the WWA works:

You pick your article from the Pinterest page. For WWs you could use articles you found on your own, but not for WWA. Thoroughly read the article, take handwritten notes (you are not allowed to copy typed notes into your quiz), and generally prepare to give an ethical analysis on it. You can leave the article open in a tab or window while you take the quiz in another. Copy the article URL to paste for one of your answers.

Start the quiz. You will have 45 minutes to complete it. Students with Ross Center accommodations will have those in place. The quiz must be complete by 11:59pm on the due date. If it’s submitted after, or begun after, the due date, your quiz will have a late penalty as mentioned in the syllabus.

You only get one attempt for the quiz. Make sure you give yourself a generous window in which to complete it. Once you start it, you must finish it in the same session.

Some questions are multiple choice.

Other questions just require you to paste the article URL, title, or publication date from the article. Further citations and references are not necessary.

The remainder of the quiz is comprised of the same type questions you would answer in the paragraphs of your write-up: weighing viewpoints, applying terms, etc. ALL of these type answers must be typed into the text boxes as you complete the quiz. You are not permitted to paste those answers (from Google Docs, Word, Grammarly, the internet, etc). The answers from those questions must be typed out entirely by you based on your understanding of the article during the quiz time.

When answering the question about the class terms, include information about which day of slides you found the term definition on. Further term citation is not necessary.

The “write-up average” column remains weighted at 25% of your final grade. Depending on your chosen options, that column may be the average of:

– 3 weekly write-ups

– 4 weekly write-ups (if you chose to do the optional 4th one)

– 2 weekly write-ups and 1 weekly write-up alternative (WWA) short answer quiz

– 2 weekly write-ups, 1 weekly write-up alternative (WWA) short answer quiz, and another optional WWA (WWA4) if you choose to do the WWA4. Both WW4 and WWA4 are optional for everyone. 

No grades are dropped in the course. Optional assignments are averaged in. As always, any answers derived in part or in whole from homework help sites, uncited internet sites, or generative transformers will result in failure both of the assignment and the course.