The exam is due at 1:00 pm (or before) on Thursday, 17 March, 2005 in the regular classroom (scheduled final exam time and location. Your lab groups will give a final report at that time.) 

Create a final exam cover sheet and put your name on this cover sheet only, not on the pages containing your answers.
Put the text of the question at the beginning of each answer! 
Staple or attach your answers to the two exam questions securely to the cover sheet!

In general:  think at a high level, but bring in enough details to support any high level answers.  When appropriate, state facts known about the problem in an unbiased manner.  Notice that you must "set up" the problems for yourself before you begi n to answer. Review the questions first, think about them, then create a brief outline of an "answer" to test for relative reasonability. When you see that you have a handle on the question and how to answer it, start to write your answer.  

• State any important facts important to resolution of the problem.
  
• Raise apparent issues in a list. 
• Analyze the tradeoffs (differing views of the issues).
  
• Use examples in support of your analysis when applicable.
• I want to see your solution to the problem as you see it.
• Cite sources you use in your work.
  

Correctness of your solution is not the point, your ability to analyze and come to a rational conclusion is.  The citation of individual sections of the Software Engineering Code of Ethics (and other codes if helpful) with application to the details of your examples are almost always necessary to support your answers. Remember: a "report" with mere facts and others' interpretations is not good enough for a passing answer. Often a format similar to that of the paper will help organize your thoughts: facts (without comment or judgment) followed by a list of issues (tell me what is important about the story - the question(s) you will answer) followed by others' arguments (without your analysis yet) followed by YOUR analysis (use the facts and others' analyses in combination with general ethical principles (cite them), law and ethical codes (cite them) - this last part, your analysis, is worth the majority of points in the answer.

• I expect a minimum of two full pages, single spaced, per answer.  This is not a hard standard, but a good general guide to the minimum amount of material I expect for a passing answer.  (This says nothing about an excellent answer!) You need to convince me you have learned how to do ethical analysis of computing issues and show me why you deserve a good grade.   I will not assume you know things that you don't write about and clearly show me right there on the page.

1. (10 points)  Review the Johnson text regarding Intellectual Property (IP) rights.  Analyze the ethics of my memo to the IP Policy Committee (IPmemo.pdf) .  Note that much of the background reasoning for the memo is found in a Tech Report (TechReport.pdf) .
Though probably not helpful, if you are interested in the Patent reference in the memo, it can be found in an early draft of the proposed IP policy (likely to have many changes and not even nearly adopted at this point....) - I post the IP policy draft here.

2. (10 points)  Glenford Myers, in his seminal book, "The Art of Software Testing" notes that software testing can only show the presence of bugs, not their absence.  With this in mind, evaluate the ethical efficacy of Dr. Cem Kaner's thesis in his article "Lawsuits, Lawyers and Quality-Related Costs" (summarized in the first paragraph of the article!)