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Enhancing the Social Issues Components in our Computing Curriculum: Computing for the Social Good

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Henry WalkerAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE-WGR '10: Proceedings of the 2010 ITiCSE working group reports

Pages 117 - 133

https://doi.org/10.1145/1971681.1988996

Published: 28 June 2010 Publication History

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Abstract

The acceptance and integration of social issues into computing curricula is still a work in progress twenty years after it was first incorporated into the ACM Computing Curricula. Through an international survey of computing instructors, this paper corroborates prior work showing that most institutions include the societal impact of ICT in their programs. However, topics often concentrate on computer history, codes of ethics and intellectual property, while neglecting broader issues of societal impact. This paper explores how these neglected topics can be better developed through a subtle change of focus to the significant role that ICT plays in addressing the needs of the community. Drawing on the survey and a set of implementation cases, the paper provides guidance by means of examples and resources to empower teaching teams to engage students in the application of ICT to bring about positive social outcomes - computing for the social good.

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Tychonievich LSherriff MMerkle LDoyle MSheard JSoh LDorn B(2022)Engineering a Complete Curriculum OverhaulProceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 110.1145/3478431.3499287(453-459)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478431.3499287
Frauenberger CPurgathofer P(2019)Ways of thinking in informaticsCommunications of the ACM10.1145/332967462:7(58-64)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3329674
Asad MLe Dantec CCosley DForte ACiolfi LMcDonald D(2015)Illegitimate Civic ParticipationProceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing10.1145/2675133.2675156(1694-1703)Online publication date: 28-Feb-2015
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Index Terms

Enhancing the Social Issues Components in our Computing Curriculum: Computing for the Social Good
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Computing / technology policy
  2. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Model curricula
    2. Computing profession
      1. Codes of ethics

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Reviews

Reviewer: Cecilia G. Manrique

The focus of this paper is on the 20-year attempt to integrate social issues into the computing curriculum. Based on an international survey of computing instructors, the authors show that most of the institutions studied include courses on the societal impact of information and communications technology (ICT) in their programs. This is in line with the desire to come up with graduates who, beyond possessing technical skills and knowledge, should also be able to understand the impact of their work on society. The results of the international survey seem to indicate that, thus far, the field has been successful in incorporating topics that concentrate on the history of computing; on codes of ethics, computer crime, and security; and on intellectual property. A neglect of the broader topic of the societal impact of computing still exists. The big issue is how we can incorporate such topics into courses, and how we should teach them. Case studies of small and large departments, in small and large colleges and universities in the US and in other countries of the world, provide us with illustrations of the variety of approaches that have been tried. The authors admit that we are far from having succeeded in the effort to incorporate social computing into the curriculum. Online Computing Reviews Service

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Published In

ITiCSE-WGR '10: Proceedings of the 2010 ITiCSE working group reports

June 2010

121 pages

ISBN:9781450306775

DOI:10.1145/1971681

Editors:
Alison Clear
Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology
,
Lori Russell Dag
Bilkent University

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Bilkent University: Bilkent University

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Published: 28 June 2010

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ITiCSE '10: Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education

June 28 - 30, 2010

Ankara, Turkey

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Tychonievich LSherriff MMerkle LDoyle MSheard JSoh LDorn B(2022)Engineering a Complete Curriculum OverhaulProceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education - Volume 110.1145/3478431.3499287(453-459)Online publication date: 22-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478431.3499287
Frauenberger CPurgathofer P(2019)Ways of thinking in informaticsCommunications of the ACM10.1145/332967462:7(58-64)Online publication date: 24-Jun-2019
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3329674
Asad MLe Dantec CCosley DForte ACiolfi LMcDonald D(2015)Illegitimate Civic ParticipationProceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing10.1145/2675133.2675156(1694-1703)Online publication date: 28-Feb-2015
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2675133.2675156
Dexter SBuchanan EDins KFleischmann KMiller KCamp TTymann PDougherty JNagel K(2013)Characterizing the need for graduate ethics educationProceeding of the 44th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education10.1145/2445196.2445245(153-158)Online publication date: 6-Mar-2013
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Connolly RActon DEiselt KTew A(2012)Criticizing and modernizing computing curriculumProceedings of the Seventeenth Western Canadian Conference on Computing Education10.1145/2247569.2247587(52-56)Online publication date: 4-May-2012
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Zaidi FGoda BSobiesk EConnolly R(2011)A student's perspective on the importance of teaching social issues in the IT curriculumProceedings of the 2011 conference on Information technology education10.1145/2047594.2047617(83-86)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2011
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Connolly RRößling GNaps TSpannagel C(2011)Beyond good and evil impactsProceedings of the 16th annual joint conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education10.1145/1999747.1999812(228-232)Online publication date: 27-Jun-2011
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