In 1984 there was considerable concern throughout the computer industry regarding the emergence of computer users who saw the networking of computers as a challenge to their ingenuity and to their expertise in circumventing security systems. These provocateurs were dubbed "hackers" by the press, using a term that had previously been applied to intelligent, innovative, but generally benign, pranksters. While the problem of securing computer systems was by no means new in the mid-1980s, the advent of the personal computer and the inexpensive modem opened up opportunities for nefarious users to extend their reach beyond their personal domain. At the same time, though again not a new phenomenon, it was understood that the reach of the computer would have extensive social impact on the society into which it was infiltrating, far beyond the extent that had been realized in the more restricted domain of main frame computers.

Against this background the Computer Science Accreditation Commission (CSAC) included, as part of the requirements of the curriculum of an accredited Computer Science, coursework in ethical and societal impact. Over the past 15 years this has manifested itself in Computer Science programs either as a single (usually 3-credit) course or as a special topic in several courses.

The potential social impact of the computer had been recognized as early as the mid-1960s (Licklider, Fano, Gotlieb), though their negative expectations were not as severe as we have actually experienced in the past 30 years. In response to the CSAC requirements, it was only those institutions with sufficient faculty resources that were ready to provide ethical and social impact studies to their students. In only a few cases was there an existing course in the curriculum of Computer Science majors. Moreover there was a stigma associated with those scientists who were perceived to belittle their credentials by turning their attention to non-scientific subjects such as ethics and social impact; for faculty concerned with their tenure or re-appointment this was a distinct deterrent notwithstanding their personal disposition. Even today there is still only a tiny cadre of Computer Science faculty in US universities and colleges who are interested in the topic and even fewer who have the opportunity to teach it. At the same time there is occasional opposition to permitting faculty from other disciplines to teach "Computer Ethics" or "Social Impact", on the grounds that they are not sufficiently familiar with the special environments of the computing field.

Whether the ethics curriculum is provided in a concentrated single source of study or is distributed in scenarios across a number of courses, there still exists a need for support for the discipline specific teacher. This paper describes the steps taken to develop a Web site at one institution, with assistance from faculty at several other institutions, to satisfy not only these two styles of presentation but also to support many other educational paradigms.

Teacher preparedness to manage a learning experience in almost any subject is a function of the ready availability of support materials and the teacher's ability to make the best use of those resources. At the same time that there is a need to extend the curriculum of all computer-related learning experiences to include a study of computer ethics and social impact, in a period when educational technologies are changing and the teaching/learning environments are being reformed. The most successful teacher is frequently the one that has the best access to background resources and, in the case of ethics and social impact, keeps up-to-date on contemporary issues. Textbooks can provide the core resource for a course, but current topics require an on-line reporter, analyst, and librarian to add new materials as they become available. As new topics arise (such as the repeated Congressional attempts to develop a Computer Decency Act and the challenges to freedom of expression) they initially receive a great deal of attention in the press and frequently corresponding commentary in newsgroups, but there is rarely a responsible observer who will maintain a on-going summary of the status of the incident and ultimately to produce a closure statement. Even in cases where there is a definitive end to the event, such as the resolution of a dispute through the US Supreme Court, the story of the development of the outcome is an important part of the understanding needed in the study of ethics and social impact. While threads in newsgroups collect the commentaries into a single line, the analysis and evaluation of arguments and situations is necessary to create a learning environment regarding the subject. The fluidity of the topics in ethical standards and social impact in computing creates an opportunity where students can use unbounded collections of reports to develop their own analytical, evaluative, and presentation skills.

Incorporating resources into meaningful learning experiences and developing active learning scenarios by which students can be involved in their learning opportunities is a process that has not been a part of the training of most Computer Science professors. The newcomer’s major expectation is that given knowledge of the topic, their transformation to teacher from learner is straightforward. Consequently in providing a topical resource today there is a distinct need to go beyond the provision of a knowledge base for information identification and coalescence, so as to provide an appropriate means for the disseminating that information. The system must be able to support the "traditional" lecture class, through distance learning presentations, to self-learning situations.

The ability to fulfill these needs is beyond the resources of a single teacher or developer; collaborative, shared development by several faculty is essential.

Starting in 1994 the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech undertook a National Science Foundation project in Educational Infrastructure (EI) to investigate the application of digital libraries to Computer Science education. This project, which completed its term in 1997, commenced its work contemporaneously with the "opening" of the World Wide Web and quickly turned its attention to the use of the Web as the delivery mechanism for digital libraries. Since that time the principal investigators and associated research assistants have applied digital library and Web technology to the presentation of course materials for 75% of the courses in the curriculum of Computer Science majors at Virginia Tech. The work moved from the use of a passive system to provide an alternative means to paper hand-outs, to a system with much greater interactivity. Initially this involved the integration of World Wide Web presentations with Internet tools, and expanded to take advantage of the CGI and form capabilities of second generation Web browsers (using PERL and C++), and later to Web Applets implemented in Javascript and Java. Among the tools developed and given limited application were an on-line testing mechanism and an on-line debate system.

Starting in Fall 1994, a digital library in support of a junior-level major's course entitled "Professionalism in Computing" was developed and used as the vehicle for a number of experiments in the use of the Web for course support. This development continued throughout the term of the NSF project, eventually resulting in a collection of over 3000 Web pages. The collection is organized into a number of directories and into two major sections corresponding to topics of general interest and those specific to Virginia Tech. From the beginning, the applicability of the resource to a variety of environments was of paramount importance. The NSF project involved three institutions who expected to benefit from the results, and it was realized that it would not always be the same faculty member at each institution who would have the responsibility of managing the course. Moreover it was recognized that the number of topics to be covered in class could only be a subset of the topics available. A more complete coverage of the topic then required that not only could the course manager select those subjects that are to be used in face-to-face encounters, but those same resources could be used as the crux of (say) take-home assignments or on-line discussions.

From the beginning it was expected that these materials would be used by different faculty at Virginia Tech who would put their own "twist" on the course. No matter how good the textbook, how extensive the resources, how detailed the notes, every faculty member has their own way of presenting materials, adding their own imprimatur and incorporating their own experiences. This gives rise to the idea that different faculty could take responsibility for the content of certain topics while the webmaster would maintain a commonality of style.

It was important to modularize the digital library so as to allow each teacher to organize the materials according to their own desires. However, it was realized as the library developed that in moving from a lecture presentation mode of learning to a self-paced, Web-based learning environment, the peculiar influence of the librarian/Webmaster diminishes and the needs of the learner could be fulfilled better with a less structured strategy. This approach also has the advantage that, by eliminating a fixed structure, the content can be readily updated as new problems arise, new laws are promulgated, precedents are established in court cases, or international diversity is recognized. On the other hand, within each module there is structure in the form of a sample class outline, a set of class notes, a bibliography, and a collection of in-class projects.

The content modules (or directories) related to the social impact and ethics course currently cover the following topics:

Each module is currently organized to include seven major files composing the nub of a learning experience:

A special directory that is a part of this library is a collection of Codes of Practice, Ethics, or Conduct that is maintained on behalf of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Technical Committee on the Social Impact of the Computer (TC-9). This collection of codes was originally developed as a part of an international effort to develop a common code of ethics for national computer societies. While that effort did not result in a common code, the collection of codes forms a valuable source of materials for the comparative study of national attitudes towards the use of computers. The collection has been extended to include the codes of many other non-computer related professional organizations. Also included is the "Toronto Resolution", a guideline for the development of codes of ethics developed in 1992 by an interdisciplinary meeting of scientists and professionals. This page is credited with assisting the Philippine Computer Society to develop a code for their membership. The collection can also be used by students to study existing codes and their application to ethical situations. Recent additions have included the "Hacker’s Code of Ethics" developed by Steven Levy, Gene Autry's Cowboy Code, and a growing collection of codes of appropriate computer usage from universities, colleges, and public schools.

The "institution-specific" section of the Web site incorporates not only administrative materials such as the university required syllabus, grading policies, and course policies, but also topics that are peculiar to the Virginia Tech curriculum requirements. Two subjects that are regarded as peculiar are the portions of the course on careers and the history of computing. The directory on "careers", developed by Sandra Birch of Virginia Tech, prepares students for their senior year of interviewing and career decision making. It involves support for students in preparing their resumés, writing cover letters, interviewing and reviewing employment contracts. The history web site has taken on a life of its own and now gets the greatest number of hits per month of any other collection of course materials in the department. Part of this success is attributable to the growing interest in the subject since the 50th anniversary of the computer got a great deal of attention in 1996, and as the professional societies recognized their own roots. Other directories in this section concentrate on writing and presentation competencies that are part of the skills practiced in the Virginia Tech version of this course. It was envisaged that this "front end" could be replaced by other teachers from within the institution to organize the course to match their own teaching style.

Starting from collaborative development within a single department, subsequent expansion has involved many others. The general interest section of the digital library has been expanded by collaboration with faculty at several other institutions. From Spring 1995 a collaborative arrangement with the MIT Computer Science Laboratory has allowed the two institutions to share resources, some of it in the form of links from the general interest section to pages stored at MIT and the mirroring of some pages so as to ensure the preservation of the materials in one place. An agreement with Florida Atlantic University provides a directory on "Netiquette" to both institutions. In Fall 1996 the IEEE Computer Society Press published Ethics and Computing by Kevin Bowyer of the University of South Florida (USF), the first comprehensive textbook that matched the goals and syllabus of the Web materials developed within the EI project. It was decided to make some minor modifications to the general interest directories and to collaborate with Prof. Bowyer in using the Web as support for the textbook. The class notes on the Y2K problem were provided by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. As part of a 1998 NSF-funded summer workshop at the University of South Florida under the direction of Kevin Bowyer, twenty colleagues were recruited as collaborators in the development of active learning scenarios in support of the individual topics. The primary repository of this collection is located at USF; the individual scenarios are linked from the projects.html pages in the Virginia Tech library.

In the Spring semesters of 1995 and 1996 the technique of developing individualized "front ends" was used by different faculty within the Virginia Tech Department of Computer Science to organize their classes. In Fall 1996 the course materials availability was extended to two other institutions who created front ends in their local server with links to the directories in the general interest section stored at Virginia Tech. Norfolk State University (Virginia), a partner in the NSF project, managed a seminar course with 20 participants which used the directories, and Heritage College (State of Washington) involved 15 students in a self-paced course. Both institutions reported a favorable response from their students. At Heritage College the entire Computer Science program is populated by a single full-time faculty member and three adjuncts who simply did not have the time or resources to offer a course in computer ethics and social impact. Using the materials as a Web-based learning medium, the course provided the first exposure to the topic for students in an environment where the resources are not sufficient to support a faculty member with the necessary expertise.

The goals for the inclusion of two other institutions in the use of the materials were twofold: (1) to evaluate the ability of other faculty and students to assimilate the course library, and (2) to expand the on-line debate population. On the latter point, it was recognized that the student population at Virginia Tech is primarily white and conservative. Norfolk State University is a traditional black institution in Tidewater Virginia serving an urban community of students with a very different social background from those at Virginia Tech. Heritage College is a unique liberal arts college located where no other four-year college exists. Fifty percent of the college's undergraduate students are either Native American or Hispanic Americans. Eighty-five percent are the first persons in their families to attend college and sixty percent live below the poverty level. Many Heritage students are farm workers and/or single mothers; women make up 70 percent of the undergraduate student body.

Each institution used the course library in a different manner. While Virginia Tech had moved to a Web-based course style using classrooms with Computer Assisted Teaching Systems (CATs), Norfolk State and Heritage used a seminar format in which students studied topics using the Web-based materials in an order of their own choosing. These groups met once a week with a faculty member to discuss their findings. An attempt was made to involve the three groups of (roughly 100) students in joint on-line debates with the hope that these three disparate populations would come down on different sides of certain issues. Three debate topics were chosen for these joint debates dealing with current issues in computing: a case of the appropriateness of minority representation on the Board of Directors of a major computer corporation (based on actual correspondence between the company’s President and a stockholder, with permission of both parties), cryptography and the clipper chip, and a charge of plagiarism against an unnamed student who copied the format and background of another student in preparing a home page. While the debate topics were well covered, the differences in student backgrounds did not emerge as vividly as expected. This may be partially the result of a more restricted access to terminals at Norfolk State and Heritage than is common at Virginia Tech. It is hoped that through this project, this experiment can be repeated with improved access facilities.

In evaluating their involvement Richard Barnhart of Heritage College reported:

Unsolicited responses were received from other institutions who had used the materials but had not "registered" with us as participants in the experiment. Typical of these (and most interesting) is the comment from the United Arab Emirates:

During the 1997 Spring semester the library was used by a University Honors Colloquium on "Internet Issues" organized by a faculty member from the Department of Chemistry, and since Spring 1998 it has been a resource for a Science and Technology Studies (STS) course entitled "Computerization, Self, and Society".

Through the mechanisms for teachers and learners to develop their own "front ends" to the library of materials, and means to navigate the collected items in different manners, several styles of presentation are possible:

Other institutions are invited to use the present digital library in different manners, to test the adaptability of system. To ensure that front ends are developed correctly, it will be necessary to provide Web page authoring facilities that will ensure that all the appropriate pages in the administration section are modified.

Web-based learning systems have the capability of being more than simply a passive information system through which students browse randomly to locate useful data. The social impact and ethics courseware that was developed at Virginia Tech as a digital library is now moving towards a more interactive system that can be used in a variety of teaching/learning environments to the benefit of both the teacher and the student. As a topic that is still emerging as an object of study in universities and colleges, replete with developing legal precedents and new instances of challenge from a highly innovative sub-culture of hackers, social impact and computer ethics cannot be solely encapsulated in a paper medium. A "living" medium of delivery is essential.

The digital library continues to expand daily,and several institutions make use of the materials. there is no limit to the potential usage. With the understanding that each user should also be a contributor, the site will continue to grow and live.