SEP CS Core

SEP-A: Social Context

  1. Social implications of computing in a hyper-networked world where the capabilities of artificial intelligence are rapidly evolving
  2. Impact of social media and artificial intelligence on individual well-being, political ideology, and cultural ideology
  3. Impact of involving computing technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, biometric technologies and algorithmic decision-making systems, in civic life (e.g. facial recognition technology, biometric tags, resource distribution algorithms, policing software)

SEP-B: Methods for Ethical Analysis

  1. Avoiding fallacies and misrepresentation in argumentation
  2. Ethical theories and decision-making (philosophical and social frameworks)
  3. Recognition of the role culture plays in our understanding, adoption, design, and use of computing technology

SEP-C: Professional Ethics

  1. Community values and the laws by which we live
  2. The nature of professionalism including care, attention and discipline, fiduciary responsibility, and mentoring
  3. Keeping up-to-date as a computing professional in terms of familiarity, tools, skills, legal and professional frameworks as well as the ability to self-assess and progress in the computing field
  4. Professional certification, codes of ethics, conduct, and practice, such as the ACM/IEEE-CS, SE, AITP, IFIP and international societies
  5. Accountability, responsibility and liability (e.g. software correctness, reliability and safety, as well as ethical confidentiality of cybersecurity professionals)
  6. Introduction to theories describing the human creation and use of technology including instrumentalism, sociology of technological systems, disability justice, neutrality thesis, pragmatism, utilitarianism, and decolonial theories
  7. Develop strategies for recognizing and reporting designs, systems, software, and professional conduct (or their outcomes) that may violate law or professional codes of ethics.

SEP-D: Intellectual Property

  1. Philosophical foundations of intellectual property
  2. Intellectual property rights
  3. Intangible digital intellectual property (IDIP)
  4. Legal foundations for intellectual property protection

SEP-E: Privacy and Civil Liberties

  1. Privacy implications of widespread data collection for transactional databases, data warehouses, surveillance systems, and cloud computing
  2. Ramifications of differential privacy
  3. Technology-based solutions for privacy protection
  4. Civil liberties and cultural differences

SEP-F: Professional Communication

  1. Interpreting, summarizing, and synthesizing technical material, including source code and documentation
  2. Writing effective technical documentation and materials (tutorials, reference materials, API documentation)
  3. Identifying, describing, and employing (clear, polite, concise) oral, written, and electronic team and group communication.
  4. Understanding and enacting awareness of audience in communication by communicating effectively with different customers, stakeholders, and leadership
  5. Utilizing collaboration tools
  6. Recognizing and avoiding the use of rhetorical fallacies when resolving technical disputes
  7. Understanding accessibility and inclusivity requirements for addressing professional audiences

SEP-G: Sustainability

  1. Being a sustainable practitioner by taking into consideration environmental, social, and cultural impacts of implementation decisions (e.g. algorithmic bias/outcomes, , economic viability, and resource consumption)
  2. Explore local/regional/global social and environmental impacts of computing systems use and disposal (e-waste)
  3. Discuss the tradeoffs involved in proof-of-work and proof-of-stake algorithms

SEP-J: Security Policies, Laws and Computer Crimes

  1. Examples of computer crimes and legal redress for computer criminals
  2. Social engineering, computing-enabled fraud, and recovery
  3. Identify what constitutes computer crime, such as Issues surrounding the misuse of access and breaches in security
  4. Motivations and ramifications of cyber terrorism and criminal hacking, “cracking”
  5. Effects of malware, such as viruses, worms and Trojans

SEP-K: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

  1. How identity impacts and is impacted by computing environments (academic and professional) and technologies
  2. The benefits of diverse development teams and the impacts of teams that are not diverse.
  3. Inclusive language and charged terminology, and why their use matters
  4. Inclusive behaviors and why they matter
  5. Technology and accessibility
  6. How computing professionals, via the software they create, can influence and impact justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion both positively and negatively