School of Engineering and
Applied
Science Department of Computer Science CSci 110 -- Technology and Society http://www.seas.gwu.edu/~mfeldman/csci110/summer09 Prof. Michael B. Feldman, course instructor mfeldman@gwu.edu |
Every year, the term project in this course considers the social
impact of a technological issue that is "hot" that year. In 2008, we
studied election technologies; in 2007 the RealID Act; in 2006 the
identity theft question, etc.
This year's "hot" issue is Electronic Health Records (EHR).
Development in the U.S. of electronic health records and interchange
networks has been ongoing for a number of years. A Federal task force
has worked on this and released a number of reports, and started
serious testing of some of the software using small groups of users.
But this year, the new Obama Administration -- as part of the high
priority it is giving to health care reform -- is putting heavy
emphasis on EHR, as one important factor in providing more effective
and efficient health care to Americans at a lower overall per capita
cost. The American Recovery and Reinvestment ACT (ARRA, the so-called
"stimulus package") devotes a significant amount of funding to
accelerating the adoption of EHR throughout the society -- insurers,
physicians, hospitals, pharmacies, and so on.
In this course we're interested not so much in the technical details
of EHR systems, but rather in the overall
impact on society of their adoption, including public perception.
Your assignment is to research the topic as individuals, discuss it
as a class, and design a survey to
examine public
attitudes about electronic health records. Each
student will be assigned to one of several groups; each group will
develop its own survey, and deploy it on the zoomerang.com
survey website. You will collate and analyze the data, and each group
will write a report of its findings. ONE final project paper per group
is expected.
IMPORTANT NOTE:
PROJECT STAGES:
Because of the compressed course schedule, this project must
progress at the rate of one stage per week! Sorry about the fast pace,
but this is the only way to get it done in 6 weeks overall!
Week 2 -- Research report (8%, due Sunday,
5/31): Each student will
gain some background in the subject and write an individual report
(approximately 1000-2000 of your own words) that will discuss the
overall subject, including the general state of adoption of EHR
systems, the recent Federal emphasis, and your personal assessment of
the benefits and risks.
Week 4 -- Survey Instruments due and deployed (due Sunday, 6/14): Each group will deploy its survey on Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com). One member of each group will create a FREE account (good for ten days) and enter the survey questions, etc. EMAIL INSTRUCTOR THE URL FOR YOUR SURVEY so I can help "advertise" your need for data. Be sure you also recruit your own family, friends, etc. to take your survey! :)
Week 5 -- Preliminary Report on Survey Results (8%, due Sunday, 6/21): Each group will collate, examine, and analyze its survey data and submit a report providing preliminary results.
Week 6 -- Final Social Impact Analysis Report (8%, due Saturday, 6/27): Each group will write a report based upon the data that contains an abstract, introduction to the subject, discussion of the research protocol, presentation of the findings, conclusions and bibliography.
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