Computer Science 312 Syllabus for Spring 2016

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

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

Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays 1:00 to 3:00

Text: Annual Editions: Technologies, Social Media, and Society, 2015-16, Caroline Shaffer Westerhof, editor. McGraw Hill, 2015, 21st edition. ISBN-1259349810 / 9781259349812

Date	Group	Chapter	Topic
Jan 25			Overview of course, creation of groups Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change
Jan 27	A	1	As Data Overflows Online, Researchers Grapple with Ethics
Feb 1	B	2	Wireless Charging, at a Distance, Moves Forward for uBeam
Feb 3	C	3	The Secret Life of Data in the Year 2020
Feb 8	D	4	What Will Social Media Look Like in The Future?
Feb 10	F	5	Licence to Text
Feb 17	G	6	The Truth about Video Games and Gun Violence
Feb 22	A	7	Nigeria: Protecting Financial Data from Cyber Attacks
Feb 24	B	8	The Individual in a Networked World: Two Scenarios
	C	9	What Facebook Knows
Feb 29	D	10	Google's European Conundrum: When Does Privacy Mean Censorship?
	F	11	New Document Sheds Light on Government's Ability to Search iPhones
Mar 2	G	12	Engine of the Information Technology
	A	13	A Beginner's Guide to Building Botnets--with Little Assembly Required
Mar 7	B	14	Network Insecurity: Are We Losing the Battle against Cyber Crime
	C	15	The Rising Influence of Social Media as Reflected by Data
Mar 9	D	16	How Psychology Will Shape the Future of Social Media Marketing
	F	17	How Google Dominates Us
Mar 14	G		Politics and the New Machine – New Yorker, Nov. 16, 2015 Midterm Review
Mar 16			Midterm Exam
Mar 18			Library Research Document Due
Mar 21	Mar 26		Spring Break
Mar 28	A	18	AmazonFresh is Jeff Bezos' Last Mile Quest for Total Retail Domination
	C	19	Can Online Piracy Be Stopped by Laws?
Mar 30	B	20	The Top 10 Countries for Embracing IT
	D	21	The Lost Steve Jobs Tapes
Apr 4	F	22	How Technology Is Destroying Jobs
	G	23	The Tricky Business of Innovation: Can You Patent a Magic Trick?
			Survey Document Due
Apr 6	A	24	World's Tech-Ready Countries 2014: Finland on Top Again; Ireland at 26th
	B		Bride of Stuxnet
Apr 11	C	25	10 Ways to Make the Internet Safe from Cyber Attacks
	D	26	7 Reasons Why Sweatshops Still Persist
Apr 13	F	27	The CIA Can't Hack Senate Computers Because They Own Them, Experts Say
	G	28	How Technology is Transforming the Future of National Security
Apr 18	A	29	Deception Is Futile When Big Brother's Lie Detector Turns Its Eyes on You
	B	30	Know Your Rights!
Apr 20	C	31	4 Reasons Why the Internet of Everything Will Require a New Breed of IT Pros
	D	32	Next Generation of Cyber Defenders Prepare for Expanding Battlefield
Apr 25	F	33	Why Computers Won't Be Replacing You Just Yet
	G	34	From Smart House to Networked Home
Apr 27			Project Presentations
May 2			Final Review Project Presentations
May 9			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, including the member doing the PowerPoint, 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 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 are too many. 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 be 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.

Learning Outcomes for CS 312, Research Methods in Computers and Society:

An ability to

· design effective surveys and conduct effective data collection, analysis, reasoning, and presentation;

· conduct effective logical reasoning, debate, and tradeoff analysis for scientific, business, and social issues;

· understand social responsibilities and professional ethics, including those in the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, and apply them to the analysis of situational vignettes;

· understand the social and legal impacts of computing including data privacy, security, and copyrights;

· write technical articles with effective planning, literature research, data collection, writing, discussion, commenting, and revision;

· conduct effective oral presentations both individually and as part of a team.

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

· 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

“Procedure for Students with Disabilities Who Wish to Obtain Reasonable Accommodations for a Course:  The University's commitment to equal educational opportunities for students with disabilities includes providing reasonable accommodations for the needs of students with disabilities. To request a reasonable accommodation for a qualified disability a student with a disability must self-identify and register with the Office of Disability Services for his or her campus. No one, including faculty, is authorized to evaluate the need for or grant a request for an accommodation except the Office of Disability Services. Moreover, no one, including faculty, is authorized to contact the Office  of Disability Services on behalf of a student. For further information, please see Resources for Students with Disabilities at http://www.pace.edu/counseling-center/resources-students-disabilities.”

In the event of a major campus emergency, course requirements, deadlines and grading percentages are subject to change when necessitated by revised course delivery, semester calendar or other circumstances.  Information about changes in this course can be obtained at the Blackboard course web page or by contacting me via email: cwolf@pace.edu.  If the course is not able to meet face-to-face, students should immediately log onto Blackboard and read any announcements and/or alternative assignment.

To review the Seidenberg Academic Integrity Policy please visit

http://www.pace.edu/seidenberg/seidenberg-current-students/academic-information-and-policies

CS 312 Suggestions for Group Projects

1. Has the Internet made privacy a ‘thing of the past’? Are there any secrets left? How safe are your credit card numbers and bank accounts?

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 effects 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? How will artists, composers and writers earn a living in the Internet economy?

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

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

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

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

10. Will self-driving cars become standard? What are some of the problems that they could cause?

11. Who is Edward Snowden? What did he do? 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?

12. What is Bitcoin and what might be its future? What is the current controversy about extending its ability to handle heavy data flows?

13. What do people mean when they use the term ‘big data’? How might it reshape the way we govern and do business?

14. What is net neutrality? Is it in danger?

15. What is the sharing economy, and what are some of its advantages and disadvantages? What are some of the problems that Uber and AirBnB are having in some US cities and Europe?

16. Are search engines and automation making us dumb? Have texting and talking on smart phones supplanted face-to-face conversation? What are the effects of multi-tasking?

17. Should we be worried about the dangers of robots and artificial intelligence and curtail their development?