CS/IT 285L

COPPA is a class term, but must be researched and studied outside of class time. It is not in our lectures. Please add it and its definition to your notes.

You also need to know the general content (one-sentence summary) of what these whistleblowers leaked:

Frances Haugen, Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner

In the continued spirit of maximizing the insufficient time we have to fully engage with our comprehensive subject matter, I’ve made a few changes to our Discussion Memos.

1. Only one class term will be required (fully defined and applied) instead of two.
2. Students can and should fill out the black parts of the DM prior to class. Only the green parts need to be filled out during the discussion.
3. You can circle your group number or indicate groups of convenience instead of writing it out.

These new templates are accessible now in Canvas. If you already printed out 10 of the original DM templates, that’s fine. You can just use both term boxes for one term and complete the administrative part of the memo before class.

I’m listening. Please do not complete this survey during class time. Answers will be considered as long as they are submitted by Saturday, February 15 at 6pm.

QR code to survey if link is not ideal:

If your class meets at a time other than 12:30pm, you can safely disregard this post.

Sections 02 and 12, aka the 12:30 section, rejoice! We no longer need to go deep in the belly of Healey library in order to have our class. For those who haven’t checked their Wiser notifications, the new meeting place is Wheatley, first floor, room 005 (W-1-0005). When you enter Wheatley from the Quad side, go straight through the big entry hallway and 0005 will be on your left. Don’t turn into the smaller hallways past the stairs.

Hi all! Looks like UMB is closing school tomorrow, February 6, so our class won’t meet on campus. In consideration of the timeline for the entire semester, I have mapped out the best way forward. Here’s the plan:

For the lecture content: I will hold a Zoom lecture for the Day 4 slides at 11:00am on Thursday, February 6, and the meeting will be recorded. The Zoom meeting is only accessible through Canvas and you should be signed in to join. Students from any section may attend this lecture. Real-time attendance is not mandatory for any student, but all students should review the recording before coming to class on Day 5. Terms from this lecture will be tested on Quiz B on Day 5 (Tuesday, February 11). See the screenshots below if you need help navigating to the meeting. I’ll post the recording on… you guessed it! The Recordings page as soon as it is available. Update 1:15pm – it’s available! Direct link here.

For the Discussion Memo (DM) assignment: Sadly we will miss the in-class component of this one, and submit it on Canvas instead. You can fill out your discussion memo by hand or type your answers into the PDF. Of course, you will leave the box about your group members blank this time. The DM is based on the article OpenAI Continues Its Mission of ‘Ethical’ AI by Partnering With a Killer Robot Company by Lucas Ropek for Gizmodo. By this point, everyone in class should have read it on their own in preparation for tomorrow’s class, but it’s on the topics page on our course website if you are behind and need to access it now. The due date remains Thursday, February 6 at 6pm, but I am instituting a 24 hour grace period so everyone has ample time to upload and submit their document. See the screenshots below if you need help navigating to the submission portal.

Maybe see you tomorrow if you choose to attend the Zoom lecture for Day 4 at 11am. Otherwise, see you on Tuesday ready for Quiz B!

Screenshots for Zoom meeting:

Screenshots for uploading your discussion memo:

If you have not attended class prior to today, or are not prepared for the quiz for another reason, please do your best… and make a plan to consult the page that applies to you: late enrollment, late to class, quiz page.

In preparation for the quiz, please:

Hello! It looks like some of the links in the syllabus were not up to date. Here is a fixed version.

The BOS quiz suffered from the same problem, with a mention of turning in homework on Canvas, which is not the case for you! If you already did the quiz, no problem, and the offending question has been fixed for those taking it now. To be clear: you’ll submit your project on Canvas, but homework (in the form of reading assigned articles, then completing an in-class discussion memo) is only checked in class. No Canvas submissions for homework this semester!

Welcome to CS/IT285L: Social Issues and Ethics in Computing. The Spring 2025 semester begins on January 28, 2025. This class is conducted on campus. Please check Wiser for your course time and location.

Please familiarize yourself with this website, as along with Canvas 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.

Hi Friday students!
Our last day of class is this week, December 6. If you’d like to attend an optional final paper workshop session next week, you can join any of the Tuesday/Thursday sessions listed on the syllabus for December 5th and/or 10th. December 12th is a dedicated work-on-the-final-paper-from-home day.
Have a lovely rest of your semester!

The first in person meeting of the new IT Club will take place this coming Thursday, December 5th, in the Integrated Sciences Complex, Room 3300.Holiday food will be on offer and Jason Agress speaks about his experiences working in the IT industry.