Computer Science 312                                                                        Syllabus for Spring 2010

Dr. Carol E. Wolf                                                                               Office 163 William St. 215

Website: http://csis.pace.edu/~wolf/                                                   E-mail: cwolf@pace.edu

Office Hours: Mondays 11:00 to 12:00 and Wednesdays 2:30 to 3:30

Text:    Annual Editions: Computers in Society, 2009-10, Paul De Palma, editor,

            McGraw Hill Contemporary Learning Series, 2009

 

 Date

Group 

Chapter 

Topic

Jan 20

 

 1

Overview of course, creation of groups
Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change

Jan 27

A

2

On the Nature of Computing

 

B

3

A Place for Hype

Feb 1

C

4

Click Fraud

 

D

5

Online Salvation

Feb 3

E

6

The Big Band Era

 

F

7

The Beauty of Simplicity

Feb 8

A, B

8

The Software Wars

 

C

9

National ID

Feb 17

D

10

Dilberts of the World, Unite!

 

E

11

Computer Software Engineers, Occupational Outlook Handbook

Feb 22

F

12

How Deep Can You Probe?

 

A

13

Privacy, Legislation, and Surveillance Software

Feb 24

B

14

The Computer Evolution

 

C

15

Back-to-School Blogging

Mar 1

D

16

Romance in the Information Age

 

E

17

E-Mail Is for Old People

Mar 3

F

18

Girl Power

 

A

19

Bloggers Against Torture

Mar 8

B

20

Piracy, Computer Crime, and IS Misuse at the University

 

C

21

Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?

Mar 10

D

22

Center Stage

 

E

23

 The Coming Robot Army

 

 

 

Library Research Document Due 

Mar 15

F

24

A Technology Surges

 

A

25

Wikipedia in the Newsroom

Mar 17

 

 

Midterm Exam   

 

 

 

Survey Document Due

Mar 22

B

26

E-Mail in Academia: Expectations, Use, and Instructional Impact

 

C

27

Why Spyware Poses Multiple Threats to Security

Mar 24

D, E

28

The Virus Underground

Mar 29

Apr 3

 

Spring Break

Apr 5

F

29

False Reporting on the Internet and the Spread of Rumors

 

A

30

The new Right-Wing Smear Machine

Apr 7

B

31

A Growing Watch List

Apr 12

C

32

China’s Tech Generation Finds a New Chairman to Venerate

 

D

33

Restoring the Popularity of Computer Science

 Apr 14

E

34

China’s Computer Wasteland

Apr 19

F

35

In Search of a PC for the People

 

A

36

In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession

Apr 21

B

37

New Tech, Old Habits

Apr 26

C

38

A Nascent Robotics Culture

 

D

39

Toward Nature-Inspired Computing

Apr 28

E, F

40

Google and the Wisdom of Clouds

Apr 30

 

 

Review

May 3

 

 

Presentation of Group Projects

 

When a group has been assigned a chapter to report on, one member of the group should write a summary of the chapter and prepare PowerPoint slides describing it. The other members of the group should find related material either in print or on the Internet pertaining to the topic in the chapter.  Each one should also prepare a 1 or 2 page written summary. The group will then make a presentation during the class time and hand in the written summaries.  If we run out of time for the entire presentation, the remainder will be presented during the next class session.  If you have any problems printing, email the summary to me, and I will print it out for you. You may also send me the PowerPoint slides and I will make sure that they can be shown on the classroom equipment.

Summaries should be double-spaced and brief. One or two pages are all right, but three pages will not be accepted. The slides should also be brief with no more than 4 or 5 bulleted items per slide. The summaries will be graded for both grammar and content.  After they have been returned with corrections, the corrected versions should be copied into html and posted on a group website. These websites may be either on a server chosen by the group or on a Pace University server.

The group project will consist of a library research paper, a survey, a statistical analysis of the survey results and a conclusion. The entire project is due at the end of the semester. It should both be presented in class and posted on the website.  At the end of the semester, zip up the entire contents of the website and send them to me.  I will then post them on my website. No one in the group will receive a final grade until all the material has been posted on the site.

Grades will be determined by two written exams, a midterm and a final, all the presentations during the semester and the final project. Each one of these categories will count for 25% of the grade. All written materials, including exams, should be double-spaced.  If your handwriting is hard to read, please print on your exams. Grammar will count on all documents, but spelling will only be graded on papers prepared ahead of time.

Additional Resources:

Herman T. Tavani, Ethics and Technology, Chapter 2, Wiley, 2004.

MLA Citation Style, 6th ed. (2003), http://www.pace.edu/library/pages/instruct/guides/mla6.htm

I. Lee. A Research Guide for Students. http://www.aresearchguide.com/ Feb. 4, 2004.

ACM Code of Ethics, http://www.acm.org/constitution/code.html

John L. Sullivan and Richard G. Niemi, editors, Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, Sage Publications Inc., 1983.

http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html

 

CS 312 Suggestions for Group Projects

 

1.      How does computer usage differ between rich and poor schools?

 

2.      Why do so few women and minorities choose to work in IT?

 

3.      How private is data on the Internet?  Are people buying more on-line than before?

 

4.      What are people doing about spam?  Has it decreased or increased lately?

 

5.      What do people do to protect their computers from viruses and worms?

 

6.      What are employers now looking for?  What is the effect of ‘off-shoring’?

 

7.      Does using a computer cause isolation or greater interaction with others?

 

8.      Is Internet dating effective, and who is doing it?

 

9.      How successful are robots?  Who uses them?

 

10.  What effect are social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook having on relationships?  How safe is it to use them?

 

11.  Where do people get news and political information? 

 

12.  How safe is electronic voting, and has it affected last elections?

 

13.  Why are fewer students choosing IT as a major?

 

14.  How have IM, PDAs, IPods, etc. changed people’s lives?

 

15.  Do violent computer games and TV shows make our soldiers more aggressive?

 

16.  What part did computer technology play in causing the great recession?  What are CDO’s and CDS’s, and could they be created without computer programs?

 

17.  Now that the Kindle has been hacked, what can publishers do to protect their books from piracy?