Social responsibility for computing professionals and students

Abstract

In our desire for technical excellence, an appreciation of the human factors of computing is often overlooked. This paper proposes that the social and ethical implications of computers need to be understood by computer professionals and hence should be included in undergraduate computing courses. University computing courses tend to produce graduates who are technically competent yet who have had little exposure to the psychological, sociological and philosophical issues of computing. A recent South African survey supports this observation. There are a wide variety of topics about which we should be aware and a list of these is discussed along with a justification of why and how such topics could be scheduled in already crowded computing courses. It is recommended that students of computing encounter such topics both implicitly (incorporated into existing subjects) and explicitly (in a separate subject specifically addressing this topic). Further details and a brief literature review are presented.