1. Debating E-commerce: Engaging Students in Current Events Amber Settle CTI, DePaul University Joint work with André Berthiaume ISECON November 2, 2002

2. 2 Outline Approaches to integrating social, legal, and ethical issues in the curriculum The debates  Topics  Structure  Format  Grading Results – Common outcomes – Undergraduate – Graduate Future work

3. 3 Social, legal, ethical issues in the curriculum Separate course: School of CTI, DePaul University: Undergraduate – General education – Little technical content Graduate (Masters level) – Course for Ph.D. students – Elective only Within existing courses (Cohen and Cornwall 1989) : Add lectures (passive) Written assignments (re-enforce students’ bias) Interactive dialog (difficult in large classes) Debates (structure + interactive learning)

4. 4 The debates Purpose – Critical thinking – Controversial, technical topics – Focus on the content, not debate format Courses – ECT 250: Survey of e-commerce technology – DS 420: Foundations of distributed systems – Similarities: Survey courses – Differences: Level and maturity of students

5. 5 Debate topics Offensive Web content: Controlling content viewing Copyrighting digital media: Napster case and others The U.S. government vs. the Microsoft Corporation Legal issues in e-commerce: Digital signatures Sklyarov case and code breaking in general U.S. bill draft: Government imposed software security The French government versus Yahoo! Virtual child pornography

6. 6 Debate structure Timing: Introduced after the midterm Positions: Pro and con Example: Copyrighting digital media Pro: Copyrights should be enforced on the Web Con: Copyrights should not or cannot be enforced Preparation: A written research summary – Context for the debate – A summary of the position taken – A list of references with short quotes

7. 7 In-class debate Pro’s opening statement (5 minutes) Gives context and states position Con’s cross-examination (3 minutes) Rebuttal of pro’s position Con’s position statement (4 minutes) Statement of position Pro’s cross-examination (3 minutes) Response to con’s statements Audience comments/questions (8 minutes) Assigned interrogators and others Closing statements (2 minutes each) Points of each side are recapped

8. 8 Grading Options for students Debate Extra questions about debates on final exam Undergraduate course Extra credit to debate Every student produced a paper Extra guidance (papers, grading) Graduate course Interrogator (questions and expected answers)

9. 9 General results One to two quarters of data Enthusiastic response High quality papers and debates Good participation from non-native speakers Variation between graduate and undergraduate

10. 10 Undergraduate course Spring quarter 2002 only 14 students in the course (only 5 in CTI) Traditional age undergraduates Native speakers only Four debates – Copyrighting digital media – Skylarov case – Offensive Web content (2) Positives: – Well-prepared – Articulate Negatives – Some debates unorganized – Little integration/analysis of material

11. 11 Graduate course Winter and spring quarters 2002 36-52 students in the four classes Mixed ages and nationalities Debates by quarter – Winter: All but one topic – Spring: Only three topics – Topics may have seemed stale Positives: – Evaluated technical aspects well – Very articulate and objective – High audience participation in spring – Better integration of material in lectures

12. 12 Future  Continuing work in the two courses More explicit guidance for undergraduate debaters New topics  Conduct debates earlier to allow reflection  Investigate using debates in other CTI courses CSC 200: Survey of computer technology Conducted in Spring 2002 by another instructor Capstone courses – More technical knowledge – Public speaking course

13. 13 References Clark, Martyn, 2000, “Getting Participation Through Discussion.” SIGCSE Bulletin 32(1): 129-133. Cohen, Eli, and Larry Cornwell, 1989, “A Question of Ethics: Developing Information Systems Ethics.” Journal of Business Ethics 8: 431-437. Coulouris, George, Jean Dollimore, and Tim Kindberg, 2001, Distributed Systems: Concepts and Design, Third Edition, Addison Wesley. Laudon, Kenneth and Carol Traver, 2002, E-commerce: Business, Technology, Society. Addison Wesley. Siegfried, Robert, M., 2001, “What’s Wrong with Napster? A Study of Student Attitudes on Downloading Music and Pirating Software.” Proceedings of the 18 th Annual Information Systems Education Conference (ISECON). Wahl, Nancy, 1999, “YAATCE – Yet Another Approach to Teaching Computer Ethics”, SIGCSE Bulletin 31(1): 22-26.