CS3604 - Professionalism in Computing - Dr. Hartson - Spring 2003

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• Your individual contributions to the other teams' debates (25%)
  • To get the full 25% credit for your individual contributions to the other teams' debates, you must post at least one reasonable and thoughtful contribution to the debate of each other team. Of course, you are welcome to post even more.
  • The 25% credit for your individual contributions to other debates will be graded, based on making a well-founded point or reasonable argument and not violating our etiquette rules for posting.
• Your individual debate grades for debate management/presentation (75%).
  • Your individual debate grades for debate management/presentation is determined by weighting your team's grade for debate management/presentation by your team members' evaluation of your effort and contribution to the team's debate.
  • Failure to turn in the Team Member Evaluation Form by the due date will cost a 5% deduction from your individual debate grade for debate management/presentation.
  • The breakdown of the 75% between debate management and presentation: If the team's management of the on-line part of the debates is acceptable, this 75% comes entirely from the presentation. If there are one or more aspects of the way the team managed the on-line part that were not up to expectations ( a rare case), points will be deducted from the 75%.
  • Late submission of your debate topic selection deliverable will cost 5% deduction from the team's grade for debate management.

An important factor in the grades, especially for the presentation, is how well arguments are based on ethical principles.  Refer to the ACM Code of Conduct.

How the on-line part of the debates works

The class will be divided into teams, who will work together to stage a debate on an ethical scenario about a current professionalism topic. We offer suggestions for topics and scenarios, but the team has the final responsibility for choosing the topic and developing the scenario. If you are not sure your topic and scenario are appropriate, you should send them to the GTA for a quick check.

The team sets up and manages the on-line component of their debate, "seeding" it with a few pro and con contributions to get it started.   Each other student in the class will make a written contribution to each team's on-line debate.  We will discuss the mechanics of this in class.  See the calendar for the opening and closing dates for all the parts of the debates.

How the presentation part of the debates works

Each team will make a 20 minute presentation. Please practice it so you don't run over time (and have to get cut off in class) or significantly under time.

One person in the team will introduce the topic.  This will usually be done by first describing the scenario and then stating, perhaps as a motion (for example):  "There has been a breach of ethical standards by the person(s) in the scenario."   Others will present the pro and the con arguments. Another will wrap up the debate at the end, providing a balanced view, giving a summary and final closing arguments. Finally, in the last couple of minutes, the team will conduct a very brief Question & Answer session and conduct a straw poll on the debate issue.

You are required to use professionally produced overhead transparencies for your presentation in the debate.  Plastic overheads are fine, but PowerPoint slides shown via our laptop or yours through the screen projector are probably easiest and best. Immediately following each debate, class members will have the opportunity to provide input and "vote" on the motion.  The quality of your team presentation will also be evaluated by one other team, using the debate presentation peer review form, as well as by the instructor.

To those of you who worry about the pressure of being in a debate:  Remember, the debates you do in this class are not real adversarial debates.  You will be working with your team to produce both sides of the debate, so don't worry about things like confrontations in class. 

Debate teams

See the Debate Team Rosters for your assignment to a team.

How to Do the Debate Project for your Team's Topic

1. Select your topic (see section below for details; see calendar for due date)
2. Send a one-liner topic description to the GTA, for approval and to reserve the topic for your team (see section on reserving a topic below)
3. Do your topic scenario analysis
4. Decide what to post on-line to conduct your on-line debate and do the posting
5. Manage the on-line debate
6. Give debate summary team presentation (see calendar for specific team presentation dates)

Choosing a Topic

Each team must choose its own debate topic. Overall success of your debate can depend on two topic selection factors:

• interest (a topic that is engaging, or "juicy")
• balanced (i.e., must have at least two feasible viewpoints, usually pro and con)

See Dr. Lee's debate topics.

See also debate topics and scenarios from other years.

Possible other topic areas are listed here. You would have to synthesize a specific scenario in one of these areas. I have some source material about many of these topics that I can loan you. Please ask me if you need it.

• Special needs, ADA requirements
• Universal accessibility
• Consideration to public risks in system development
• Internet censorship
• Competitive intelligence, industrial espionage
• Intellectual rights, copyrights, patents
• Privacy
• National missile defense system
• protection of the environment, ecology
• Ethics of medicine, biotechnology
• Scientific fraud, plagiarism
• Hackers, breaking into computer systems
• Professional and legal liability for defective information, software
• Viruses, worms, and other "malware"
• Technological obsolescence (losing jobs to automation)
• Cryptography, public encryption
• Whistle-blowing

Reserving a Topic and Getting it Approved

As soon as your team is selected and listed on the Team Rosters page, you will meet them (usually at a time set aside in class) and exchange contact information and start planning a debate topic. You should let me know if you have someone on your team roster who is no longer in the class. Your team can get your topic approved by sending an email message to the GTA with a one-liner description of your topic. If it is a good topic in relation to the subject of this course and no one else has yet claimed it, we will approve it and you will have the topic reserved (i.e., you get the topic and other teams cannot choose that topic). If your chosen topic duplicates, or is too similar to, a topic already reserved by another team, we will ask you to select another topic. Topics are approved and reserved on a first-come, first-served basis.

Team Topic Selection Deliverable

Updated version of the delivable instructions:

• Go directly to the CoWeb debate site for our class at: http://debates.cs.vt.edu/HCS3604Spring2003
• Fill out the template for your team.
• Include the topic scenario (see examples for style and approximate size), a brief statement of the pro position, and a brief statement of the con position
• The topics are first-come first-served; so before you post it, please check to be sure no one else has used your topic.
• The GTA has admin privileges on the server and can check the order in which topics were posted.
• The GTA will check the CoWeb soon after the due date.
• You can consider your topic accepted unless the GTA gets back to you about it.
• Be sure to edit the index page and put your topic next to your team's link. Use a short topic/scenario title (e.g., a one-liner like "The Freedom to Use Cryptography")
• Do not put your topic inside the *'s.
• For example, when you are done, the link off the index page should look like this *Team 1* - Your Topic and NOT like this *Team 1 - Your Topic*
  

  Late submission of your debate topic selection deliverable will cost 5% deduction from the team's grade for debate management.

  Debate Management

  Team Presentation

  Team Member Evaluations

  The grade assigned for the debates is initially a team grade.  Each team member will be asked (on a form that you will print) to evaluate the relative effort of each team member.  If this is about even, each person gets that initial team grade.  If effort is decidedly uneven, individual grades will be adjusted accordingly.  No positive credit is given for submitting your Team Member Evaluation form on time, but individuals not turning them in on time will receive a 5% penalty in their debate grade (from the 100% possible for the overall debate grade).