collberg@dna.lth.se (Christian S. Collberg) (01/15/90)
[reposted from "comp.edu"]
I'd be interested in hearing about how different schools have
handled the teaching of ethics for Computer Science Majors. With "ethics"
I mean specific common-sense rules that guide our day-to-day contact
with computers ("Thou shalt not steal files from your fellow student's
account","Thou shalt not create viruses", ...) as well as more general
principles that affect computer scientists in the work-place (ought one to be
involved in defence-related work, which sort of programs violate the
individual's rights and should one refuse to write, ...).
I know Mary Shaw and some other people wrote a set of ethics rules for
CMU students after the "worm" incident. I believe it was published
in CACM, although I have lost the reference. Does anyone out there
have access to similar sets of rules that they'd be willing to share?
Chris Collberg
collberg@dna.lth.semsmith@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mark Robert Smith) (01/15/90)
[originally from "comp.edu"] At Rutgers, it isn't codified very well. Class users are told that the Rutgers Academic Dishonesty Policy exists, and applies to user directories on the computers. This policy is published in all sorts of user handbooks we see here. Also, a few professors require that the directory where the class work resides be protected against all group and world users. These professors are rare. Also, the dishonesty policy is not veryh well implemented. You get caught if a TA or professor notices you cheating, but on projects this is not likely. Many students copy other's programs and simply change the identifiers to get around text comparisons. The ethics relating to malicious attacks (virii and such) are not on paper or in any electronic form at all. I have occasionally questioned this. If you break the rules, you hear about it, but on occasion someone breaks the rules simply because they didn't know the rule existed. Also, the upper-level administrators are afraid to create policy about computer use as the policies may require legal scrutiny or differ with the highest Administration's ideas. Thus, Rutgers policy on ethics is rather ad-hoc, with many rules being hidden until violated. Mark Smith, KNJ2LH All Rights Reserved RPO 1604 You may redistribute this article only if those who P.O. Box 5063 receive it may do so freely. New Brunswick, NJ 08903-5063 msmith@topaz.rutgers.edu
pattis@cs.washington.edu (Richard Pattis) (01/15/90)
[originally from "comp.edu"] The CPSR (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility) published a short note on "Ethics, Society, and Computers". Many of the topics under discussion are touched upon in this note, including an interesting article by Brian Harvey (bh@ernie.berkeley.edu): one section differentiates between Morals and Ethics, using medical ethics as an example. For more information, write to CPSR, PO Box 717, Palo Alto, CA 94302-9917. Rich Pattis
jet@flatline.lonestar.org (Eric Townsend) (01/17/90)
Christian S. Collberg asked: > I'd be interested in hearing about how different schools have > handled the teaching of ethics for Computer Science Majors. With "ethics" As far as I know (I'm a compsci minor, will start work on compsci bs in the fall); the University of Houston CompSci dept. just has the basic "academic honesty" policy and that's about it. The only additional rules I've been given in my 6 or so CompSci classes are: 1. The account is for class use only. The instructor and/or TA has the ability to peruse any and all files in your class account to make sure you're only doing class work, and that you aren't lifting files off of other students. 2. There's a special form for network access (internet mail, telnet, ftp) that says you agree to follow some sort of vague rules about not breaking any laws and following university rules concerning use of university equipment. It doesn't seem too 'binding', but it would certainly help the university if they could say that J. Random Worm-author :-) had been warned not to do anything that wouldn't be officially sanctioned by the university. Also, all University Employees are "asked" to sign a form saying that they won't sell/consume illegal chemicals while at work or on University property. I doubt it would conflict with posting/reading alt.drugs (any university account can get usenet access, I think); but there could be problems if you post tips on growing your own weed from a university account. (Any legal eagles want to clarify this?) Likewise, I don't know if there is any sort of policy for dealing with people who use email/usenet as a "bully pulpit" for encouraging illegal acts or hate crimes... (I doubt it, knowing this university. There isn't even a general SOP (Standard Operations and Practices) manual that I can find...) J. Eric Townsend
jharkins@sagpd1.uucp (Jim Harkins) (01/17/90)
[originally from "comp.edu"] At San Diego State nobody has ever mentioned the word 'ethics' outside of me and some friends in a joking manner. If caught copying someones programs we can be kicked out of school, but I think thats the same policy that is used for term papers and the like. > You get caught if a TA or professor notices you cheating, but on > projects this is not likely. Many students copy other's programs > and simply change the identifiers to get around text comparisons. I hate to say this but a programmer's style is unique unless a group is forced to fit a mold. I worked in a shop that had 6-8 assembly programmers and I could look at about 1 page of code and not only tell you who wrote it, but who changed it (assuming the changes were only a line or two). Granted, in a class of 30-50 students it's not likely plagarism will be detected like this. But what will the prof think when, out of all those programs, 5-6 unique error modes appear? (i.e 5-6 people wrote programs, everyone else copied from someone else.) Once you've caught his eye it's easy for him to look at the code and see that only 1 person wrote it. I almost got busted by this. I was in a class where we broke up into groups of 3 for a large class project. When it was graded my group and another got called into the teacher's office, it turns out our programs had exactly the same bugs. Uh oh. Turns out a member of my group was in another class with a member of the other group and they had swapped passwords. Naturally Diane used the same password on all her accounts. Fortunatly, we could explain how the program worked while they hadn't even looked at it, just changed names. So I graduate this semester, and they got kicked out of school. jim
ken@argus (Kenneth Ng) (01/18/90)
[Note that we're getting a bit off-course here. If we can bring the discussion back to ethics I think everyone would be appreciative. -- Dave] I almost had a flair for doing projects in unusual ways. My projects were almost always so unique that any copying would immediately be noticed. And then even if they did copy my project, they'd probably have to explain how it worked to the professor. All kinds of things like, "I couldn't fit the tables in memory, so my pascal program called FORTRAN routines to do ISAM file I/O. But FORTRAN ISAM I/O lacks a 'next' function, so I wrote one in assembler." :-) Or, when I had to be able to print output sorted in a programmable manner, I tossed the data into a memory format compatible with the system editor (Univac 90/80-4 VMOS) and called it as a subroutine with the command to sort and print the output as desired by the user :-). Were the programs documented? Somewhat, although I tended to leave off *WHY* certain things were done and only said what was done. Were the programs portable? Not on your life, but that wasn't one of the goals in the assignment. I'm not sure I sould say this, but one way teachers often look for copying is to look for similar documentation, especially table setups, and spelling mistakes. After all, it is conceivable that several people will write a program the same way, especially if you had shown that very same way in class. But to have several people have the same incorrectly spellled sentence in a comment is far less likely. Kenneth Ng: Post office: NJIT - CCCC, Newark New Jersey 07102 uucp !andromeda!argus!ken *** NOT ken@bellcore.uucp *** bitnet(prefered) ken@orion.bitnet