Syllabus                                                            Professor Tom Atchison 
Ethics in the Information Age                          Office:  312 St. John’s Hall (St. Paul Campus)
PHIL 327-01                                                      Office Phone: 651-793-1493
Spring Semester 2012                                         Email: Thomas.Atchison@metrostate.edu
                                                                          (Email is the best way to get a quick response.)


Course Objectives:

1.  To learn the basic concepts and methods of several approaches to ethics and to see how these may be used to think about moral problems connected to information technology. 

2.  To get better at analyzing and evaluating decisions, institutions, policies and issues from an ethical point of view by:

a. Learning something about the history of laws, policies, and practices relating to information technology
b. Becoming more familiar with the positions people have developed to address these issues and the arguments for and against those positions
c. Practicing the skills involved in defending and criticizing your own and others ideas about what practices, policies, decisions, etc. would be best.

Topics:  Privacy, surveillance, and the control of information; intellectual property, copyright and the open-source ethic; ethical obligations of IT professionals with respect to security, reliability, safety, usability, etc; spam, porn, and the ethics of mass communication; political and social significance (if any) of ‘the internet revolution’.

Texts:

Ethics for the Information Age, fourth edition, by Michael J. Quinn 
(If you buy this book online or anywhere besides the Metro State bookstore, be sure you have the fourth edition.)

Other readings will be photocopied and handed out in class or will be available on the Internet.  Many assignments for this class will require access to the Internet and the ability to read significant amounts of online material.  Metro State provides access in its computer labs and library as do public libraries.  It is your responsibility to make sure your home access is adequate or to make time to do your reading at school or a library.  Occasionally I will ask you to print out an online text and bring it to class.  (It was either that or order several more books.)

Class website:  I maintain my own website (not part of D2L) where I post course handouts and information at:  http://www.woldww.net/classes/   Many of the course readings will be linked here.

Please make sure your Metro State email account is working and check regularly for class related emails

Please bring the assigned readings to class each week

Coursework

 Please keep copies of all the work you hand in.

Reading assignments
           I expect you to find time (several hours) to do the reading for each class and to come prepared to discuss it.  Come to class ready to say what you found interesting, what you found confusing, silly, or just plain wrong, what seemed to you to be the most important claims made, and what arguments or justifications were offered for those claims.

Reading response papers
             20 % of your grade will be earned by submitting brief (1-2 pages, typed, double-spaced) responses to the readings for each class.  These must be turned in at the beginning of the class period or emailed to me before class to get full credit.  Late response papers will earn half credit.  (If you must miss class, send in your response paper by e-mail.) They can contain questions, objections, observations and/or reactions to the reading for that class.  I will not grade these (or even return them consistently), but I will reject any that do not seem to be based on a reasonably conscientious reading of the assignment for that week.  You can miss one or two of these and still earn an ‘A’ for this part of the course work, but missing more will be penalized on the following schedule: 85% completed = A; 70% = B; 60% = C; 50% = D; less than 50% = F.  I will also notice and reward particularly perceptive or thoughtful response papers.

Position Papers
           At approximately 5 week intervals you will be asked to submit a 4-6 page position paper explaining and defending your position on some ethical question or issue connected to the topics we have studied in the preceding third of the course.  See the schedue of assignments for due dates.  Detailed instructions will be handed out later.

Class discussion
           Most weeks we will have guided small group discussion projects.  The purpose of these projects is to open discussion and to focus it on particular issues. They are also intended to be "mini-labs" in which to practice the skills of careful reading and evaluation of reasoning.  The projects are done in class in groups of 3-5 and take roughly 20-45 minutes to complete.  Each group should keep notes on its discussion, sign the notes and hand them in at the end of each class session.  Often groups will also report orally on their discussions.
           If you miss a discussion project, you should get hold of the instructions, write out responses to the questions on your own, and hand them in as soon as you can.  10% of your grade will be determined by the number of discussion projects you complete satisfactorily (on the same schedule as the response papers above.)
10% of your grade will also be determined by my evaluation of the quality of your participation in class discussions.  Just showing up and paying attention earns a C for this component; occasionally making helpful contributions earns a B; regularly making helpful contributions earns an A.  Helpful contributions include: asking pertinent questions, answering questions asked by the instructor or by other students, expressing your views about the texts or topics we are discussing, responding (relevantly and respectfully) to the views expressed by others.

Groundrules for class discussion       
           In my view, high quality class discussion is informed  by careful reading of assigned texts, respectful  of the other participants, relevant  to the issues we are trying to discuss and thoughtful  in that points are made or questions are raised that help us move toward greater understanding.  I believe the following guidelines help foster this kind of discussion:

• Coming to class with the reading done and some ideas in mind;
• Being willing to say what you really think even if it might be unpopular or not what the teacher wants to hear           
• Never  demeaning or "putting down" others for their perceptions or opinions, but honestly expressing disagreement with or confusion about what they say;
• Speaking from one's own experience-- not presuming to speak for others;
• Being sensitive to what we don't  know about each other-- not assuming that we all share certain experiences or perceptions;

Grading criteria
           I try hard to base my evaluation of your work on your understanding of the reading, the quality of your reasoning and questioning, and the clarity and effectiveness of your expression of your thoughts, not on whether I agree with your ethical ideas and positions.

Time commitment outside of class
           In accordance with Metropolitan State University guidelines, I've designed this course with the expectation that students will do 2-3 hours of course-related work outside of class for every hour spent in class.  In other words, you should expect to spend 6-9 hours a week outside of class working on this course. 

Needed reading and writing skills
           Although there are no prerequisites for this course, it is an upper-division course.  This means I assume you have the following reading and writing skills, and assignments are made with this expectation in mind:

• Ability to read and summarize the main points of analytical, abstract material such as Supreme Court decisions and academic essays;
• Ability to include appropriate citations of quoted and paraphrased sources in academic writing;
• Ability to construct short, analytical essays including stating and supporting a thesis, presenting and addressing objections to your thesis, and drawing conclusion
• Ability to edit written work well enough to eliminate most errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling.

If you do not have these skills, it will be difficult for you to earn a good grade in this class.

Course Policies

                       
Disability Services

Metropolitan State University offers reasonable accommodations to qualified students with documented disabilities. If you have a disability that may require accommodations it is essential that you be registered with the Disability Services Office.  You may contact the Disability Services Office, at Founders Hall, Room 221, St. Paul Campus or (651) 793-1549, or email Disability.Services@metrostate.edu  For additional information on Disability Services, please visit:  http://www.metrostate.edu/msweb/pathway/academic_success/disability/index.html 

Attendance
           I do not require attendance per se, but part of your grade is determined by discussion projects and general class discussion.  So, when you are in class, contribute to the discussion and please be sure your name is on your small group's discussion report and that the report gets turned in.  When you miss a class, get the instructions for the discussion project, write out answers on your own and turn them in.  I strongly advise regular attendance (and prompt completion of missed discussion projects), because the material in this course is relatively difficult and confusing, and few students are able to do well on the exams and papers without the explanations and practice provided in class.

Late work
           Response papers must be turned in at (or before) the beginning of class to receive full credit.  Late response papers will receive half credit. In fairness to students who turn their position papers in on time, I will subtract one grade (e.g., B+ to B) for each day that a position paper is late.

Incompletes
           I will give incomplete grades only to students who have satisfactorily completed most of the course work and who are unable to finish on time because of circumstances beyond their control.

Plagiarism
           All work submitted for this course must be your own.  Plagiarism is the academic ‘sin’ of presenting someone else’s work as your own.  It is plagiarism if you copy something verbatim (word for word) from a published source, from the Internet, or from another student.  It is still plagiarism if you rearrange, paraphrase, condense, or summarize someone else’s work without making clear to your reader what is your contribution and what is taken from your source. If the exact wording comes from your source, then use quotation marks.  If the idea comes from someone else, give him or her credit for it. The way to do this is to cite your sources.  There is a clear and detailed explanation of various forms of plagiarism and of proper citation practices at http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~tales/02-1/plagiarism.html.  I will give a grade of ‘F’ to any student who submits plagiarized work for this course.   

Drop date, Tuition Refunds, and Academic Standing
           Withdrawing from courses after the drop deadline (Jan. 15) will result in a ‘W’ on your record and may bring your completion rate below the ratio required to remain in  good academic standing (66.66%).  It will also eliminate any possibility of a refund of the tuition you have paid (this may have an impact on your financial aid).  My advice is to determine quickly whether or not this is the right course for you and to drop before that deadline (just a few days away), if it is not.  This is an academically demanding class with a relatively heavy schedule of reading and writing assignments.  In addition most of the readings are relatively difficult .  If your reading and writing skills are not up to this challenge, or if you do not have 6-9 hours per week to devote to completing these assignments, I urge you to drop this class before Jan 15, so you can get your money back and avoid jeopardizing your financial aid.