Realities of Teaching Social and Ethical Issues in Computing

Doris Keefe Lidtke

How Can We Evaluate What is Taught in Social and Ethical Issues in Computing?

In separate courses on social and ethical issues, the evaluation is usually based upon class participation, written research papers, and essay examinations. This provides a rather complete way to determine what the student has mastered. When social and ethical issues are integrated into the computing sciences curricula, evaluation becomes a much greater problem. Most of the courses already have more material than many faculty members and students can cover in the allotted time. The social and ethical issues are frequently put off until the end of the course and are often given less time than indicated in the syllabi. It is seldom that a student can be asked to write a term paper on social and/or ethical views in one of these integrated courses, and the faculty sometimes feel uncomfortable in grading such work. Seldom are essay examinations given which cover these issues and the students generally feel that if the subject is not covered on the examination it is not important, or at the very least is not important for them to study. If we are to integrate computing values into our curricula, we must find a method to evaluate student competence in this area. So far I have seen not evidence of this. We have work to do.

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