Strengthening Connections Between Ethics & Computer Science at Georgetown
This post is part of a series following the progress of Ethics Lab’s collaboration with the Computer Science Department that began with the Mozilla-sponsored ResponsibleCS challenge.
With two semesters of Mozilla-sponsored ResponsibleCS ethics engagements under their belts and the first stage of the grant substantially complete, Ethics Lab and the Computer Science Department are continuing to refine and test their approach to infusing ethics into Georgetown’s computer science curriculum.
Merging technical insights from computer science faculty with design-based and pedagogical insights from the Lab, the previous academic year’s engagements covered a broad array of topics, from algorithmic bias to nuances of data privacy, the ethical dimensions of human-computer interactions, and tradeoffs involved in proposed contact tracing apps for COVID-19.
Feedback from the first year's pilots highlighted students’ enthusiasm for concrete case studies, tighter integration of ethical and technical concepts, and more frequent opportunities for discussing issues of social impact and responsibility.
“Every semester, it’s been better... it makes the whole course better.”
To that end, the Ethics Lab project team, led by Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Alicia Patterson, is working closely with CS professor Dr. Ray Essick to revise the existing engagements and to develop new ethics-centered components for technical projects in Essick’s Advanced Programming course this fall.
The goals for the semester are ambitious—co-designing and -delivering four sessions and multiple project components—but the team is committed to improving upon their initial successes. “Every semester, it’s been better… it makes the whole course better,” says Essick.