Computer Science 312                                                                        Syllabus for Spring 2014

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, 2013-14, Daniel Mittleman, editor. McGraw Hill, 2014.

eText: ISBN-

Print: ISBN-0073528773 / 9780073528779

 

 

 Date

Group 

Chapter 

Topic

 

Jan 27

 

1

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

 

Jan 29

A

2

The Social Century

 

 

B

3

It's a Flat World, After All

 

Feb 5

C

4

How Google Dominates Us

 

 

D

5

What Facebook Knows

 

Feb 10

E

6

The Decision Lens

 

 

F

7

Beyond Credit Cards

 

Feb 12

G

8

My Life as a Telecommuting Robot

 

Feb 19

A

9

Automation on the Job

 

Feb 24

B

10

The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes

 

 

C

11

Women, Mathematics, and Computing

 

 Feb 26

D

12

Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted

 

Mar 3

E

13

Relationships, Community, and Identity

 

 

F

14

R U Friends 4 Real?

 

Mar 5

G

15

The YouTube Cure

 

Mar 10

A

16

Everyone's a Player

 

Mar 12

 

 

Midterm Exam

 

Mar 14

 

 

Library Research Document Due 

 

Mar 17

Mar 22

 

Spring Break

 

Mar 24

B

17

Hacking the Lights Out

 

 

C

18

Bride of Stuxnet

 

Mar 26

D

19

Me and My Data

 

 

E

 

War in the Fifth Domain

 

Mar 28

 

 

Survey Document Due

 

Mar 31

F

20

The Web's New Gold Mine

 

 

G

21

 The Conundrum of Visibility

 

Apr 2

A

22

Know Your Rights!

 

Apr 7

B

23

The Yin and Yang of Copyright and Technology

 

 

C

24

The Online Copyright War

 

Apr 9

D

25

Can Online Piracy Be Stopped by Laws

 

Apr 14

E

26

Aaron Swartz Hacks the Attention Economy

 

 

F

27

Internet Censorship Listed

 

Apr 16

G

28

Watch Your Language!

 

Apr 21

A

29

Global Trends to Watch

 

 

B

30

How to Spot the Future

 

Apr 23

C

31

Weighing Watson's Impact

 

Apr 28

D

32

Augmented Reality Is Finally Getting Real

 

 

E

33

You Will Want Google Goggles

 

Apr 30

F

34

Gene Machine

 

 

 

May 5

G

 

The Coming Superbrain

 

 

 

May 7

 

 

Presentation of Projects

 

May 14

1:20

2:45

Final Exam, Room 1535

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

11.              What is PRISM?  Should we be worried about it?

 

12.              What is the NSA doing with all the data it collects?  Should we be more worried about it than about large companies that track everything we do?

 

13.              How will artists, composers and writer earn a living in the Internet economy?

 

14.              What was the ‘Silk Road’, and how did Bitcoin and Tor contribute to their crimes?

 

15.              What is ‘Anonymous’, and why was one of their members sentenced to 10 years in jail?  Who is Sabu?

 

16.              What is a ‘disruptive technology’?   Are there examples in the computer field?