Exploring the ethical, legal, and social aspects of the computing discipline

Computer science professionals must be prepared to handle ethical, in addition to technical, challenges. Situations in industry demand this-and the Computer Science Accreditation Board (CSAB) requires that undergraduate programs address it. This paper describes a course which helps prepare students to face these ethical challenges. CS 400, Computer Science Seminar, is a one credit hour graded course taken by our computer science majors in their last semester of undergraduate study. The course addresses the ethical, legal, and social aspects of the computing discipline. Students are exposed to some of the ethical challenges they might face in their careers as computer scientists through case studies, assigned journal readings, and guest speakers. We also discuss graduate study in computer science, membership in professional societies and the importance of reading journals to stay current in this fast-moving field. This paper presents an overview and then describes the implementation of this seminar program