A New Model for Weaving Responsible Computing Into Courses Across the CS Curriculum
Lena Cohen, Heila Precel, Harold Triedman, Kathi Fisler
Abstract
CS departments in the USA have used various models for teaching about ethics, including standalone ethics courses and expert-designed assignments. At Brown University, we are trying a different approach: a group of undergraduate teaching assistants dedicated to socially-responsible practices in computing work with faculty to integrate content into multiple assignments both across a course and across the curriculum. This "responsible computing" initiative has resulted in a variety of assignments added to 13 different courses in the past year. This paper describes the program's design, sample assignments, results of an internal evaluation, and refinements we are making to the model. We contrast our model to others from the literature in hopes of expanding the collection of curricular ideas for designing education in responsible computing.