A plea to everyone out there finishing up the syllabus for your fall computing-related class: put some ethics on it. This is a thread to tell you why you should do that and to offer some tips on how. Massive cultural change within computing starts with a single syllabus!
First, why is it so important that ethics is in technical computing classes and not just one required ethics class? Because ethics should be part of the process of DOING computing, and that's how we should teach it. Here's my detailed argument on that: howwegettonext.com/what-our-tech-…
I've heard from lots people about challenges in doing ethics integration- from "I don't know enough about ethics" to "I don't have time for more content in class" to "The students don't think it's important" to "It's too difficult to grade." I think these things can be addressed.
One opportunity is to partner with people in other disciplines. The Embedded EthiCS program at Harvard brings in philosophy students and post-docs to work with CS instructors, which benefits both the philosophers and the computer scientists! cacm.acm.org/magazines/2019…
If you think you can't add more content into a programming class, consider embedding ethics into an assignment. Maybe based on the data you use, or the questions you ask. The paper I just tweeted about includes example ethics modules for machine learning.
Some of my favorite examples of assignments that teach the same core concepts but are re-contextualized to bring in ethical issues come from @EvanMPeck for intro programming classes. e.g., loops/conditionals with self-driving cars & algorithmic decisions medium.com/bucknell-hci/t…
@EvanMPeck I've been working with intro programming instructors at my university to take the assignments they are already using, and re-contextualizing them to teach the same concepts with different contexts: so far, personalized ads and college admissions data. (Can't wait to share!)
@EvanMPeck My colleague @bkeegan designed a short course on data scraping on the web, and includes ethical considerations as part of the process of collecting data, because OF COURSE it is. You shouldn't learn about that in a separate class!
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan Of course, the semester is about to start and you're finishing your syllabus and you don't want to redesign your class. But there are many small things you can do to reinforce to your students that ethical considerations are part of computing:
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan Mention current events in class, or consider having students spot these for themselves. Add a learning objective to your syllabus about creating responsible code. Bring up potential biases or sources of data. Teach that code is power and you have to be responsible with power.
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan (But honestly, if you teach a class on something like artificial intelligence, algorithms, machine learning, or data science, and you say that you don't know how to make ethics relevant, then I can do nothing but throw up my hands and sigh.)
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan Are you worried that students won't care, and that they will tune out when you mention ethical issues? I think they might surprise you. A lot of people care about ethics right now, thanks to scandals in the news. Though also: I GUARANTEE you they won't care if you don't.
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan If you're looking for ideas, there's always the Giant Spreadsheet of Tech Ethics Syllabi. I know this is a lot to dig through; stay tuned, as I'm working with students to synthesize parts of this (lists of readings, etc.) into a more useful resource. medium.com/@cfiesler/tech…
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan I am also really, really looking forward to the outcomes of the #ResponsibleCS challenge (thnx @mozilla @OmidyarNetwork et al.) because the goal is to create even more solutions to ethics integration that can be shared and scaled. foundation.mozilla.org/en/initiatives…
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan @mozilla @OmidyarNetwork And I encourage you: If you ARE working on this, and have created content for your computing course that integrates ethics, please share widely! The more ideas that are out there, the more likely it is that more people will pick them up! Changing the world one class at a time!
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan @mozilla @OmidyarNetwork In conclusion, I encourage you all to put ethics on things. What a sad little computer science class; I know, I'll put some ethics on it.
@EvanMPeck @bkeegan @mozilla @OmidyarNetwork Another example as an addendum to this thread: collaborators & I wrote a paper about the experience of integrating ethics into an undergraduate HCI class. (Which, yes, is a topic that makes ethical connections particularly seamless :) ) cmci.colorado.edu/~cafi5706/sigc…
