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Consequences of Computing:
A Framework for Teaching
Preamble
The primary purpose of the ImpactCS Project is to define the core content and methodology for
integrating social impact and ethics topics across the computer science curriculum. Over the
course of three years it will address three major problems that hamper the implementation of
across-the-board curricular change: the lack of a well-specified definition of what the core
content should include, the lack of materials to address the core that can be adapted or adopted
into the existing CS curriculum, and the lack of awareness and expertise on the part of most CS
faculty regarding the need and methodology for presenting such material in their courses.
This report represents the culmination of effort over the past year to address the first problem,
the development of well-specified core of content and methodology for integrating social impact
and ethics topics across the computer science curriculum. The work began at a two -day meeting
held in August, 1994, with the convening of a Steering Committee comprised of 25 experts (listed
in Appendix 1) who are well-known in computer ethics and social impact from a number of different
perspectives: philosophers, social scientists, ethicists, and computer science professors with
expertise in CS curriculum and accreditation issues. From that meeting emerged the conceptual
framework and a database of topics and teaching methodologies that became the basis for this
report. This report has been circulated for approval and revision to the Steering Committee at
each stage of its development. As the ImpactCS Project Director, I am particularly indebted to
the work that Chuck Huff has done over the past year to pull this report together.
Using the Computing Curricula 1991 Report of the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force
(January, 1991) as a model, this report provides the conceptual framework and rationale for
defining a new content area in the computer science curriculum with the same intellectual rigor
that the other content areas are defined. It is the vision of the ImpactCS Steering Committee
that the approach to integrating ethical and social impact issues into computer science proposed
by this report will make a positive and profound change to the teaching and practice of computer
science as we enter the 21st century.
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