Consequences of Computing:
A Framework for Teaching
Principles and Skills Underlying the Social and Ethical Dimensions - Page 28 of 36
Important Skills from Social Analysis [SS]
For all of these skills in social analysis, the senior project is an excellent place to ask the student to think about the social context in which the project is (or might be) embedded and to evaluate how that context effects the performance of the product. But practice in doing this needs to be provided before hand, and might best be incorporated into the ethical and social issues course, in addition to the software design course, and other appropriate technical courses.[SS1] Identifying and interpreting the social context of a particular implementation. To the extent that computer professionals will be designing technology that will actually be used, they need be able to think carefully about the situations in which it will be used. Quality design of technology requires that a product be designed with its actual use in mind. This can only be done if the designer is able to evaluate a potential implementation in terms of its likely use by people in an organization doing real work.
[SS2] Identifying assumptions and values embedded in a particular design. Like earlier skills in ethical analysis, the claim that a particular implementation of a technology is value-neutral is based more on a failure of imagination than on personal bias. Certain technologies may, in fact, be more constrained by physics and mathematics than others, and thus less subject to value-based choices. But simply to claim it is so does not relieve one of responsibility to determine if it is so in the project on which you are working. Educational software often assumes its users will be male, with clear negative consequences for females [5]. Much software and hardware assumes that its users will not be handicapped in perception or movement. These potentially illegal failings will not be caught unless computer professionals are trained to see the values embedded in the technologies they produce. Successful practice in identifying embedded values as a student provides the assurance that one can find them in the technology one designs later.
[SS3] Evaluating, by use of empirical data, a particular implementation of a technology. Practicing computer professionals need to be able to use empirical data to evaluate the likely use of a technology (as opposed to its planned use) and the performance of a technology after its implementation. Armchair analysis will not do, but publishable quality social science research is not what is needed either. The designer of a technology needs enough data to help determine if (within constraints of time and budget) the design has the effects in actual use it claims to and has no other significant risks associated with it. Students need help making the professional judgment calls about how much and what quality of evaluation to do.
