CSC 300 - Professional Responsibilities
Fall 2007

Professor	Daniel Stearns
Office	14-203
Office Hours	Posted on office door and on Web page
email address	dstearns22@earthlink.net
Web URL	http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~dstearns

Course Catalog Description:
CSC 300 Professional Responsibilities (4)
The responsibilities of the Computer Science professional. The ACM/IEEE Software Engineering Code of Ethics. Quality tradeoffs, software system safety, intellectual property, history of computing and the social implications of computers in the modern world. Applications to ethical dilemmas in computing. Technical presentation methods and practice.

Course Objectives:
Students will:

1. be able to discuss their responsibilities as computer professionals.
2. be able to apply the Software Engineering Code of Ethics.
3. be able to write and give professionally competent oral presentations.
4. be able to discuss the variety of social impacts of computing on our society.
5. be familiar with the regulations and laws pertinent to the computing profession.

Course Textbooks:

Computer Ethics, Deborah Johnson, Prentice-Hall, 3rd Edition
Software Engineering Code of Ethics

Class Communications
The best communication media are lecture, lab and office hours. Email is an excellent one-way communication medium and a poor two-way medium.
Also important is the class Web page. There you will find class notes, reading assignments and lots of other information.

Plagiarism
Cal Poly explicitly defines academic cheating

In CSC 300, cooperative work is an important part of the learning; you are encouraged to study together, discuss the class and its many issues. But,

It is cheating to turn in duplicate work (even one small sentence)
It is cheating to copy work (even one line) from another student's assignment or file.
It is cheating to copy work (even one line) from a published source without credit.
It is cheating to lend another student your assignment.
It is cheating to write part (even one line) of another student's assignment.

Oral Presentations
Each student is required to give oral presentations in class as follows:

• Unscheduled informal oral talks (no longer than 2 minutes)
  Informal talks are not scheduled; students will be called on randomly although volunteers will sometimes be solicited.
  

  Your presentation should discuss your weekly news media article.
  If you don't have an article, you can obtain partial credit with a personal story, comment on the readings or anything else relevant to the course.

• One formal oral presentation (10 minutes maximum) using a case study pertinent to the responsibilities of the computer science professional. The talk must include explicit references to the SE Code of Ethics.
  Formal reports are scheduled in advance; case studies must be approved in advance. Overheads must be preapproved by your instructor prior to the presentation; failure to do so will result in cancellation of the talk.

Laboratory Projects
Each student will be assigned to team that will complete several laboratory projects during the quarter. Lab projects are required work; you must complete all of them to pass CSC 300.
You are expected to attend every laboratory session to work with your team on the lab projects.

Course Notebook
Each individual student is required to maintain a course notebook containing the materials listed below. Notebooks will be collected on a sporadic basis during Tuesday lab time. Material must be organized chronologically by week; use a loose-leaf notebook.
You are expected to create and maintain a professional notebook; sloppy work/entries are not acceptable.

Notebook Contents

1. Reading reaction
   Give your reaction to each assigned reading that requires a reaction.
   Do NOT summarize the reading; I want you to react to what you read. And please don't do bullet writing! These reaction can be handwritten (if your handwriting is legible), printed or maintained on a blog. The notes should include some or all of the following depending on your interest or thoughts:
   1. Your reaction to key ideas
   2. Ideas you find surprising or new
   3. Evidence given for or against the author's arguments
   4. Relationship of the article to other articles or class discussion
   A reading reaction must be a minimum of 200 words. In some cases, more words may be required to express your thoughts.

2. Answers to reading questions
   Answer the reading questions on the reading assignment page.
   There is no minimum word count; answer the question clearly and precisely.
   Use the same medium as the reading reactions for these answers.
   

3. News Media Articles
   The press, both traditional and www, is rife with articles on professional responsibilities. You are to locate one current article each week from a reputable source. Put a copy of the article in your notebook, cite the source and write a quick summary (100 words) describing its relevance to the issues in this class. Also prepare to be called on during lecture to discuss your article.
   The article and your summary must be on paper, inserted in your notebook.
   

4. Individual Homework Assignments
   You will complete a few individual homework assignments during the quarter; these are to be completed without assistance. You will be asked to submit assignment deliverables separate from your notebook. But, always keep all of your returned assignments in the notebook.

5. Participation (1 entry per week)
   Document anything that demonstrates your active participation in CSC 300. Participation activities might include outside reading, active class participation, office hour visits, helping classmates, extra credit work done, ...
   This entry is not explicitly graded but will be used to determine your +/- grade in CSC 300.
   

6. Attendance
   You are expected to attend every lecture/lab.
   If you're unable to attend class, send an email note to Prof. Stearns before the start of class.
   

7. Final Examination
   The course final examination will consist of two parts:
   Part A - questions on the course readings
       Students who have a reading reaction/question grade average < 7 must take this part. Other students need only take Part B.
   

   Part B - application of the SE Code of Ethics
       You will be asked to apply the SE Code of Ethics to several case studies
   

All written work is graded using the following scale:
    10 - Perfect understanding and WPE writing level at 4 or above
    9 - Good understanding and WPE writing level at 4 or above
    8 - Satisfactory answer and WPE writing level at 4 or above
    7 - Weak answer; use of words from Bad Words List; marginal writing
    6 - Weak, incomplete answer
    1-5 - Question not understood; < 4 level writing
    0 - Verbatim response; quoted response; not answered; directions not followed; news article not relevant

I reserve the right to assign different individual grades on a lab project based on an individual's contribution to that project. If you fail to contribute to a lab project; you will earn a grade of 0.

Oral Work is graded on the following scale:
    10 - Perfect understanding and professional speaking
    9 - Good understanding and excellent speaking
    8 - Satisfactory answer and speaking
    7 - Weak answer; satisfactory speaking
    1-6 Weak incomplete speaking
    0 - Speaker absent

You must receive at least a grade of 7 on your formal presentation to pass CSC 300; a second chance will be given if requested.

Grading Weights

Notebook - 25% (must be complete and acceptable to pass CSC 300)
Individual Homework assignments - 15%
2 minute talks - will be used as participation credit
Formal Oral Presentation - 15%
Laboratory Projects - 25%
Final Exam Part A - used to make up poor notebook grade; details tbd by discussion with each student.
Final Exam Part B - 20%

Plus and minus grades will be subjectively given based on your overall class participation.
Students who fail to participate in CSC 300 will receive a course grade of F without regardless of any other grades.

Submission of late work
In general, due dates can be negotiated. But such discussions must take place long before the due date.
All late work will earn a grade of 0.