There is a lot more to Computer Science than you will be exposed to through your normal coursework. The purpose of the culture assignments is to give you an opportunity to discuss the ethical issues involved in current research. You are expected to turn in two reports during the semester. Each report is to be white paper formatted, typed, and is to cover the ethical issues involved in some aspect of computer science. Your source of information can be either an article or a seminar. Be sure to clearly explain the ethical issues.
Acceptable articles include those published in ACM or IEEE Transactions which are available online. Even if you cant follow all the technical details, you should be able to get an idea of what problem is being solved and what are the ethical issues. Acceptable seminars include those in the department colloquia or other computational seminar. Other seminars maybe used with the instructors permission (via message in Learn).
Submit a written paper that is spell-checked, typed, and not exceeding one page. The format consists of the following:
A short introduction explaining the reference describing the computer science topic. For example, an article or book should list the bibliographic info, and seminars should list the date, speaker info, and title.
A summary (one paragraph) of the resource used.
A summary (one paragraph) of the ethical issues raised analyzed through the perspective of an known ethical theory (be sure to state the theory).
A summary (one paragraph) of your opinion with relation to a known ethical theory.
Ethical Theories to choose from: Subjective Relativism, Cultural Relativism, Divine Command Theory, Ethical Egoism, Kantianism, Act Utilitarism, Rule Utilitarianiam, Social Contract Theory, and Virtue Ethics.
