Professionalism and Social Issues in Informatics: an international, collaborative curriculum development project

Abstract

As a part of developing mutual recognition of computing (informatics) programs in the European Union and the United States, a course in Professionalism and Social Issues in Informatics has been developed. This collaborative, international project builds heavily on courses that are currently taught in many programs in the USA. However, it has strong emphasis on transnational issues. Even though the problems covered in this course are common to all political jurisdictions (e.g., liability, privacy), solutions and answers to these problems may differ according to the country or region in which they are posed. For some problems (e.g. privacy) differing laws may have great impact on companies engaging in international business. The course is designed to satisfy the ABET and CSAB criteria requiring inclusion of ethical and social issues in the curriculum. The topics include: professional codes and professionalism; legal, social and public policy issues; and reliability, security, integrity and safety critical systems, emphasizing global issues and the differences between local solutions. In this paper, course content, course resources, appropriate pedagogy and necessary faculty support are addressed.