Computer Science 312                                                                        Syllabus for Spring 2012

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: Technologies, Social Media, and Society, 2011-12, Paul De Palma, editor, 17th edition. McGraw Hill Contemporary Learning Series, 2010,

ISBN: 978-0-07-352858-7

 

 

 Date

Group 

Chapter 

Topic

Jan 18

 

1

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

Jan 23

A

2

Moore’s Law and Technological Determinism

 

B

3

A Passion for Objects

Jan 25

C

4

Online Salvation

Jan 30

D

5

Publish or Perish: Can the iPad Topple the Kindle

 

E

6

The Great Wall of Facebook

Feb 1

F

7

Personally Controlled Online Health Data

Feb 6

G

8

Computer Software Engineers, Occupational Outlook Handbook

 

A

9

Women, Mathematics and Computing

Feb 8

B

10

Out of Time: Reflections on the Programming Life

Feb 13

C

11

Dilberts of the World, Unite!

 

D

12

How Deep Can You Probe?

 Feb 15

E

13

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Feb 22

F

14

The End of Solitude

Feb 27

G

15

It’s Not Easy to Stand up to Cyberbullies

 

A

16

The End of Forgetting

Feb 29

B

17

Archiving Writers’ Work in the Age of E-Mail

Mar 5

C

18

Wikipedia in the Newsroom

Mar 7

 

 

Midterm Exam

Mar 9

 

 

Library Research Document Due 

Mar 12

Mar 17

 

Spring Break

Mar 19

D

19

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

 

E

20

The Trouble with Twittering

Mar 21

F

21

The Evolution of Cyber Warfare

 

 

 

Survey Document Due

Mar 26

G

22

War in the Fifth Domain

 

A

23

 Geeks and Hackers

Mar 28

B

24

 Untangling Attribution: Moving Accountability in Cyberspace

 

C

25

The Web’s Goldmine: Your Secrets

Apr 2

D

26

The Software Wars

 

E

27

The BP Oil Spill: Could Software be a Culprit?

Apr 4

F

28

The Conundrum of Visibility

 

G

29

The List: Look Who’s Censoring the Internet Now

Apr 9

A

30

Google and Saving Face in China

 

A

31

A Fantasy World is Creating Problems in South Korea

Apr 11

B

32

In Good Company: On the Threshold of Robotic Companions

Apr 16

C

33

The Coming Superbrain

 

D

34

Cloud Computing

Apr 18

E

35

Chrome the Conqueror

Apr 23

F

36

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

 

G

37

Computers Learn to Listen, and Some Talk Back

Apr 30

 

 

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. Make sure that you use a spell checker and proof read the paper before handing it in.  The summaries will be graded for both grammar and content.  After they have been returned with corrections, the corrected versions should re-submitted. 

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 will be presented in class on the last day.  At the end of the semester, send me the entire project including the PowerPoint slides.

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 in advance.  Students will not receive a grade for the course until all papers and projects have been submitted.

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

 

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

 

3.      What do people do to protect their computers from viruses and worms?  What are “botnets” and what are they used for?

 

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

 

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

 

6.      How successful are robots?  Who uses them?

 

7.      What effect are social networking sites like Facebook and Google+ having on relationships?  How safe is it to use them?

 

8.      Where do people get news and political information?  Will print newspapers and magazines become obsolete?

 

9.      How have smart phones and other PDA’s changed people’s lives?

 

10.  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?

 

11.  What are companies doing to protect their music, books and movies from piracy? 

 

12.  What is COPA?  Will it result in censorship of the Internet?  How much protection do children need?

 

13.  What is cyber-bullying, and what can be done about it?

 

14.  How have drones and the Stuxnet worm changed cyber warfare?  How serious is the threat?  Will cyber warfare replace conventional war?

 

15.  Are PCs dead?  Will tablets and smart phones replace them?  Where do netbooks fit in?

 

16.  Are computers taking away jobs, which are not being replaced by new ones?  Has productivity stopped increasing?

 

17.  Did social networking influence the outcomes of the “Arab Spring”?  Would it have happened without the Internet?