Professional Issues 2013/14
Most courses you undertake in the School of Informatics have predominantly scientific or technical content and you spend most of your time developing technical knowledge and skills. This is not the case in the Professional Issues Course. After graduation many of you will work as computing professionals in an engineering or commercial role or as a research scientist. In such settings your professional work is regulated by the organisational setting and more widely by the legal, social, cultural and ethical context you are working in. The Professional Issues course explores the constraints and obligations you will work under, the dilemmas that arise as part of professional work and professional approaches to the resolution of the competing demands placed on a computing professional.
The Professional Issues course aims to provide a general awareness of these issues and to cover some of them in depth. The course will involve directed reading, case studies and discussion.
Context
This course is compulsory for all students taking a single or combined Honours degree involving Computer Science or Software Engineering.
Syllabus
Please see the standard
Course Descriptor
of PI. This provides a detailed description of the content of the course.
Timetable
Timetable for 2013/14. All meetings take place in Lecture Theatre 1 of 7 Bristo Square. The
a-z buildings list has 7 Bristo Sq listed (I can't put in a direct link because our html checker rejects it. Meetings will take place on Mondays and Thursdays 16:10-1800. The first meeting is scheduled for Mon 16th September at 16:10.
Course Material
Copies of material used in class will be available in PDF format on the course webpage. The website also contains a list of other relevant documents.
Please buy (and
read!!) the first book on the book list. Amazon offer a Kindle edition at £17 or so if you want an electronic copy.
Coursework
- Assessed Coursework 2012/13
- Assessed Coursework 2013/14 This will be available before 23 Sept 2013 (this was made available on 3 Oct). There will be a 1500 word essay that contributes 12.5% of the final assessment plus 5 in-class exercises that each contribute 0.5% of the final assessment. These exercises will be associated with the classes taking place between 21 October and 7 November.
- The deadline for this assignment is: 4pm, Monday 18th November 2013.
Class notes
- Thu 3 and Mon 21 Oct. Communication Skills—Writing: slides, notes, assessment 1, assessment 2.
- Mon 28 Oct. Communication Skills—Speaking and Graphics: slides, Columbia key slide, assessment 3.
- Thu 31 Oct. DRM, EME, and HTML5. W3C: arguments in favour, EFF: arguments against.
- Mon 4 Nov. Current affairs: slides, Guardian: NSA Files, assessment 4.
- Material covered in the lectures:
- Philip Wadler, lectures on communication skills (video).
- William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. White,
The Elements of Style,
Longman, 1999 (Fourth edition),
£4.71 from Amazon.
- Free Online Edition of William Strunk, Jr.'s 1918 original.
- Geoffrey Pullum, 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice. I stand by my claim that the modest monetary and time cost to read Strunk and White is the best investment you can make in your career, but do take into account Pullum's critique. (My thanks to those who alerted me to Pullum's article.)
- George Orwell,
Politics and the English Language,
from Inside the Whale and Other Essays, Penguin, 1969.
- Max Atkins,
Lend Me Your Ears:
All you need to know about making speeches and presentations,
Vemilion, 2004.
- Edward Tufte,
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,
Graphics Press, 2001 (second edition).
- Edward Tufte,
Envisioning Information,
Graphics Press, 1990.
(Challenger is discussed on pages 38-52.)
- Edward Tufte,
Visual Explanations,
Graphics Press, 1997.
- Edward Tufte,
Beautiful Evidence,
Graphics Press, 2006.
(Powerpoint is discussed on pages 156-185.)
- Additional sources.
Exam Papers
The examination (that contributes 85% of the asssessment of the course) will involve a compulsory multi-part short-answer question (Q1) and an essay-style question (choose one from two Q2/Q3). Examination questions may be based on the content of lectures given by visitors as well as on course notes and texts.
News
- The first PI lecture is on Monday 16th September 2013. Please check the Informatics Course Timetable for 2013/14.
- Stuart Anderson will lecture weeks 1 to 5 and Philip Wadler will lecture for the remainder of the course.
- Communications will be emailed to the PI mailing list.
- The Professional Issues wiki PI wiki is a means to support your course Activities
This page is maintained by
Stuart Anderson (
soa@staffmail.ed.ac.uk)
