Computer Science 312                                                                        Syllabus for Spring 2013

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, 2012-13, Paul De Palma, editor, 18th edition. McGraw Hill Contemporary Learning Series, 2010,

eText: ISBN-10 0-07-752550-7, ISBN-13 978-0-07-752550-7

Print: ISBN-10 0-07-352873-0, ISBN-13 978-0-07-352873-1

 

 

 Date

Group 

Chapter 

Topic

Jan 23

 

1

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

Jan 28

A

2

Moore’s Law and Technological Determinism

 

B

3

A Passion for Objects

Jan 30

C

4

The Revolution Will Not Be Monetized

Feb. 4

D

5

How Google Dominates Us

 

E, F

6

Click Trajectories

Feb 6

G

7

Automation on the Job

Feb 11

A

8

Computer Software Engineers, Occupational Outlook Handbook

 

B

9

Computer Scientists

Feb 13

C

10

Women, Mathematics, and Computing

Feb 20

D

11

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

 

E

12

The End of Solitude

 Feb 25

F

13

Relationships, Community, and Identity

 

G

14

Generational Myth

Feb 27

A

15

Expressing My Inner Gnome

Mar 4

B, C

16

The End of Forgetting

 

D

17

Google's Loss: The Public's Gain

Mar 6

E

18

Archiving Writers' Work in the Age of E-Mail

 

F

19

Degrees, Distance, and Dollars

Mar 11

G

20

Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted

 

A

21

Don't Fear the Reaper

Mar 13

B

22

Autonomous Robots in the Fog of War

 

C

23

 The Evolution of Cyber Warfare

Mar 18

D

24

 War in the Fifth Domain

 

E

25

Untangling Attribution: Moving to Accountability in Cyberspace

Mar 20

 

 

Midterm Exam

Mar 22

 

 

Library Research Document Due 

Mar 25

Mar 30

 

Spring Break

Apr 1

F

26

Hacking the Lights Out

 

G

27

The Web's New Gold Mine

Apr 3

A

28

The BP Oil Spill: Could Software Be a Culprit?

Apr 5

 

 

Survey Document Due

Apr 8

B

29

The Conundrum of Visibility

 

C

30

The List: Look Who's Censoring the Internet Now

Apr 10

D

31

Google and Saving Face in China

 

E

32

Does Facebook Have a Foreign Policy?

Apr 15

F

33

A Fantasy World Is Creating Problems in South Korea

 

G

34

In Good Company?

Apr 17

A, B

35

Cloud Computing

Apr 22

C

36

Chrome the Conqueror

 

D

37

Publishing: The Revolutionary Future

Apr 24

E

38

Computers Learn to Listen, and Some Talk Back

Apr 29

F

39

Weighing Watson's Impact

 

G

40

Geek Life: Die Another Day

May 1

 

 

Presentation of Group Projects

Finals Week

 

 

Final Exam

 

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 two groups have been assigned the same chapter, they should split the work between them.  A member of one of the teams should do the PowerPoint slides, and the rest should find appropriate related articles to summarize and present.

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.                  How are texting, email and Internet sites changing the way people date?

 

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

 

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

 

8.                  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?

 

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

 

10.              What is COPA?  Would it have resulted in censorship of the Internet?  How much protection do children need?

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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