Home | Syllabus | Calendar | Writing & Assignments | Debates | Participation | Grades
This course covers the social impact, implications and effects of computers on society, and the responsibilities of computer professionals in directing the emerging technology. Relevant professional skills explored via active-learning activities include literate business writing, oral presentations, debates, job hunting and interviewing, professional etiquette,critical thinking, and peer reviewing. Specific topical areas include an overview of the history of computing, computer applications and their impact, the computing profession, the legal and ethical responsibilities of professionals, careers in computing (e.g., résumé writing, interviewing techniques), risks to the public, special needs and assistive technology, Internet censorship, industrial intelligence gathering, intellectual property issues (e.g., software copyrights), environmental concerns, medical and biotechnology ethics, hacking, professional liability, "malware" (e.g., viruses), hacking, whistle blowing, privacy, data security, and universal accessibility. Outside-class participation activities include service learning assignments, career fairs, etc.).
The outcome-oriented objectives for of the course are that each student, upon successful completion, will be able to:
This course is NOT intended to change your own ethical values, but to assist you in clarifying and applying them in complex situations in your professional career.
A depth of knowledge of computers sufficient to understand the implications and impact of applying a computer to everyday situations, through junior standing and successful completion of CS2604 and COMM 2004. PLEASE NOTE: These prerequisites are strictly enforced. Any attempt to get into this course without having the prerequisites will be considered an Honor System violation.
WARNING: This course does not fulfill the requirements for CS minors as a 3000-level course option, or a higher level course for potential internal transfer applicants.
Required textbook: Bugs in Writing,
by Lyn Dupre, published by Pearson Publishing Co. (part of Addison-Wesley),
Copyright 1998, Revised Edition (latest is Sixth Printing, February 2002), ISBN:
0-201-37921X.
The primary source of study materials and resources for this course is the comprehensive digital library and web site established by Prof. J.A.N. Lee. Note, in particular, the site map (link is at the bottom of the list in the left hand margin), which is very useful for finding your way around in this large site. You are highly encouraged to browse this site at length. All of our course topics are supported by material on this site and much of the material we use comes from this site.
TO DR. HARTSON'S CS3604 STUDENTS: The above link takes you to Dr. Lee's CS3604 site. This site contains a rich source of overall CS3604 reference materials and resources that supports activities in all sections of CS3604. However, you should understand that all references to assignments, requirements, due dates, etc. in this site are for Dr. Lee's section of CS3604, not necessarily for mine. You should get all of your information about assignments, requirements, due dates, etc. from our own course site, including this syllabus and our calendar. You can tell the difference by looking at the URL -- ours will always say "cs3604rh".
Full credit goes to Prof. Lee for most of the material used in my section of CS3604, including this syllabus. Dr. Lee's site is the result of a huge amount of effort compiling references and links all over the Web. Because of its huge numbers of external links, there is no way a site like this can be kept current up to the minute. Thus, you are likely to find broken links as you use this site. Please try to ignore these and get the most you can from the links that continue to function. We will try to stay aware of broken links also and do all we can to not allow them to have an impact on your learning or grade in the course.
I also have a hardcopy collection of articles on topics relevant to this course, that students may sign out for to use as resource material for paper writing, debates, and presentations.
This is a web-based class. It is your responsibility to be familiar with the activities, assignments, and library of web-pages relevant to each class, and thus should see this course web site (and the general Professionalism in Computing resource site) in advance of each class. Many classes have pre-class readings and activities that are listed in the calendar. Announcements of your obligations will not necessarily be made in class; it is your responsibility to check the web-page for each day and be prepared.
A course LISTSERV® will be created during the first week of classes and will be used extensively for class communications. If you register late or drop the class or do not receive a broadcast message during the first week, you should send a message to the instructor so that the listing can be amended. This means can also be used to discuss homework assignments and raise questions that arise from classes.
NOTE: That the registrar uses your assigned university pid as your e-mail address. If you wish to receive mail elsewhere you should set the forwarding address at vt.edu to the desired address. PLEASE DO NOT ASK to have your mailing address in the LISTSERV changed.
| Writing assignments |
42%
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| Quizzes |
10%
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| Participation activities (inside and outside of class) |
15%
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Debate* (see Debate page for detailed breakdown) |
21%
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| Final exam |
12%
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*Individual grades for group work will be weighted by amount of participation in team effort (see Team Member Evaluations, under Debates, below).
All assignments (e.g., writing assignments, debates, and final exam) are designed by the instructor. The instructor grades the oral presentations and the instructor and GTA work together to grade the final exam. The writing assignments and on-line debates are graded by the GTA, with consultation by the instructor. If you have any questions about the grading of these items or feel that something has been graded incorrectly or unfairly, you should contact the GTA first. If you do not get satisfaction from the GTA, you can appeal to the instructor by requesting a regrading. Regrading requests must be submitted to the instructor within three class meetings after the graded work was returned to the class. A regrade will entail a COMPLETE REEVALUATION OF THE ENTIRE ASSIGNMENT. This may increase or decrease your original score. The regraded score is final.
This is a writing intensive course required for all CS majors. There will be five written assignments (of average length 6-8 pages, or 1500 to 2000 words), some with multiple parts, to be handed-in for grading in this course, each tailored to the context of the typical professional working world of a Computer Science graduate going into business, industry, or government. Examples of such business writing include:
All due dates are given on the course calendar. More details.
For help in understanding what the grader's editing marks on your graded papers mean, or for hints about common grammatical mistakes to avoid, see this page.
Plagiarism in your writing assignments is likely to be detected and will be prosecuted via the university Honor Court. See the course plagiarism policy.
There will be several in-class quizzes, possibly some unannounced, including some short writing exercises. The final examination will use the same style of questions.
A certain percentage of your course grade will come from your participation in various activities, in and out of class (see "Grading" section above). Each qualifying activity that you participate in will get you a certain percentage of the total credit for participation allowed towards the the final grade. In some cases, approved outside participation representing a large effort and time commitment can count as 100% of your course participation credit. Some will get 100% participation credit plus exemption from the debates (see the list of approved participation activities). Others will build up their participation total via more than one activity.
Some in-class activities will be extemporaneous. I will call upon individuals and small groups to come to the front of the class and go through an exercise in class for role-playing, problem-solving,and leadership, to illustrate the application of concepts covered in the class material and class discussion. In-class participation activities are done with individuals or with small groups. Grading will be done on an individual basis, generally following these criteria:
In addition to these smaller extemporaneous in-class activities, some larger ones will require you to prepare in advance. One example of this kind of activity that will require some upfront preparation is a demo of the "Bobby" system of checking a Web site design for compliance with ADA and section 508 assistive technology for disabled users. See the calendar for the class meeting for which this is scheduled. If you are interested, send me an email message proposing that you do one of these demos. The first message received (earliest send time/date) will get the job. Since this is more work than some of the other participation activities, I will allow full participation credit to the people who do it (meaning they don't have to do anything else in the way of "participation activities"; although they still might want to attend some of the events, anyway).
Your participation in any "officially sanctioned" outside-class activity can also count for participation credit in this course. Participation can include attendance or helping with the organization and implementation of an outside event (for larger amounts of credit). The list of approved activities and associated grade percentages will be maintained and expanded as the semester progresses. Your are welcome to suggest new activities and events for this list. The form of "proof of participation" will be described along with the percentage of full participation credit it is worth, as part of this list. Examples include attendance to or participation in the organization of the semester's career fair, attendance to the CS Career Night, participation in Service Learning, etc.
Debates on relevant topics will be established for the purpose of sharpening your skills to adopt and support one or more viewpoints on an issue about ethics or professionalism in the workplace. Your grade for the debate has two parts - one for on-line debate management and one for the oral team presentation of the debate results.
See the Debate Team Rosters for your assignment to a team. More details.
Each member of the team is expected to contribute equally to each part of the debate. It is possible that the most difficult part of the debate assignments is working well together in a group. Be aware of possible group problems and be ready to solve them. Don't make the mistake of taking this aspect for granted.
Sometimes, however, despite our best efforts, some team members end up not pulling their fair share of the weight. To ensure that each team member is given a debate grade reflecting individual contributions, the final debate assignment is a Team Member Evaluation. Each student must INDIVIDUALLY turn in a paper copy of the Team Member Evaluation Form (print from Web) as a required deliverable to report the relative effort/contribution of each person on your project team over the whole debate.
This form is not optional. Be professional and give a careful rating. The ratings on these forms will be used as weightings, as explained at the beginning of the semester, to convert team debate grades into individual student debate grades. The team is given a grade for the debate. Each individual team member's debate grade is a weighting of the team grade, where the weighting is based on an evaluation of individual contributions, collected from each team member (and moderated as necessary by the instructor).
FINAL EXAM
This course is heavily loaded with in-class activities, out-of-class activities, and writing assignments. Thus, there is only one examination - the final examination.
All homework and project assignments must be turned in at the beginning of class on the due date. All due dates for assignments are firm. Any assignment that you do not hand in on time will be penalized in grading. If you are not able to complete an assignment by the due date, it would be best for you to hand in as much of it as you have done. You must prepare your assignments using a word processor and hand in a hardcopy by the due date/time. Assignments may not be submitted via email to either the professor or a GTA (some exceptions may be negotiated in advance).
In brief, unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances, all assignments are due at the beginning of the class on the prescribed day. It is better for you to hand-in an incomplete assignment on time than to be late. See the detailed late policy. If you must hand in a writing assignment late, bring all late papers to class and give them personally to the GTA, or take them directly to the GTA between classes. Do NOT give or send late papers to the instructor. The GTA takes first pass at grading all the papers, and giving it to the instructor or putting it under his door will just delay getting it to the person who starts the grading.
Announcements
Announcements of updates to class materials, including (possibly) clarifications of assignments, changes in due dates, etc. will be announced through the class LISTSERV and/or the "Announcements" section at the top of the course home page. Please consult both these sources, as assignment due dates get close. Often a very useful clarification is given that will help you with your assignment.
Attendance is not required for the course, nor does it play a direct part in the course grade. However, a portion of the final grade is based on in-class quizzes, exercises, and participation. To get a grade for these, you need to attend class.
Absences From Class
However, occasionally you might need to be absent from class for a good reason, and it might cause you to miss a quiz and/or an in-class activity. If you are absent for a quiz, or if your turn comes up for an in-class activity when you are absent, you will get a grade of zero for that quiz or activity. A small number of absences will have a negligible effect on your overall course grade, but habitual absences can create a more significant cumulative effect.
If you have to miss class for an extended period due to a protracted illness or similar reason, we will treat your needs as a special case and I will do everything I can to help you recover lost ground.
Students sometimes ask for some extra credit work near the end of the semester in an attempt to bring up sagging grades. However, beyond the makeup assignments for missing quizzes or in-class activities, university policy does not allow extra credit work to be given to any student on an individual basis.
Classroom Etiquette
It is expected that you will be courteous and mannerly in your dealings with your colleagues and the class staff. See Dr. Lee's statement of classroom etiquette.
If the university is closed on an assignment due date, it will be due (in a box or pile outside Dr. Hartson's door) by 2 p.m. on the first day the university reopens.
It is the professor's responsibility to establish grading standards and work with the GTA in grading. The GTA has the responsibility to grade homework and project assignments. Therefore, when you have questions about grading of these, you should first see the GTA who graded the work. All questions regarding grading must be resolved within one week of return of the graded work. Keep all graded work until the end of the semester. In case your grade is incorrectly recorded, you will need to bring in the graded original in order for the recorded grade to be changed.
The professor and GTA will make every effort to answer your email in a timely fashion. However, due to the volume of email with classes of this size, you should not necessarily expect to get a reply in less than 24 hours or over a weekend. Many times you may get a reply in less than 24 hours, but you should not count on it (e.g., to answer questions about a homework or project assignment within the last few hours before that assignment is due). Please put "CS3604" as the subject line of your email; that will help us identify your emails more quickly.
Because of the large number of students in each class, professors and GTAs will not be able to reply to individual email requests for final exam and/or class grades at the end of the semester, but grades will be posted (on the Web and the Hokie Spa).
The Virginia Tech honor code is in effect for all work, whether performed individually or in teams. This means that individual assignments are to be done alone, without help from someone else. Similarly, team assignments are to be done by the team, without help from others.
Exceptions: Getting help in your writing from the Writing center is an important exception, and is always encouraged. Further, this application of the honor code is not intended to interfere with the free exchange of ideas and peer assistance that support learning.
NOTE about plagiarism: We will be especially zealous in prosecuting Honor Court cases involving plagiarism from the Web or Internet. Plagiarism of any work from a current or former student in this course is also considered to be an honor code violation. Through the use of peer evaluations and collaborative development, and the use of the WWW, there is a strong possibility that you will be exposed to concepts and ideas that you can use in your own work. Getting permission to use those ideas and concepts from the originator (except when it is already in the public domain) and/or giving appropriate acknowledgment in your own work circumvents a charge of plagiarism.
All assignments submitted shall be considered graded work unless otherwise noted. All aspects of your coursework are covered by the honor system. Any suspected violations of the honor code will be promptly reported to the honor system. Honesty in your academic work will develop into professional integrity. The faculty and students of Virginia Tech will not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty.
We wish to make any accommodations needed by any student because of a disability. Please contact the instructor during the first week of class.