Course Outline

The official outline can be found here on ECOS!

Contents

• Course Details
• Course Summary
• Assumed Knowledge
• Learning Outcomes
• Teaching Strategies
• Student Conduct
• Assessment
• Course Schedule
• Resources for Students
• Course Evaluation and Development

Course Details

Course Code	COMP4920
Course Title	Professional Issues in Ethics and Information Technology
Convenor	Sebastian Sequoiah-Grayson
Admin	Edward Norman and Philip Quadrio
Classes	Lectures : Tuesday 14:00 - 16:00, Mathews Theatre A (K-D23-201) Thursday 11:00 - 13:00, Science Theatre (K-F13-G09) The timetable link is up there on the left :)
Consultations	Philip Quadrio is available by appointment, email p.quadrio@unsw.edu.au Edward Norman is available by appointment, email edward.norman@unsw.edu.au
Units of Credit	6
Course Website	http://cse.unsw.edu.au/~cs4920/25T1/
Handbook Entry	https://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergraduate/courses/2025/COMP4920
Student Reps	Please email the stureps if you have any concerns with this course that you think might require student representation. They will pass these concerns on anonymously to the relevant people in order to to get the issues resolved - stureps@cse.unsw.edu.au. NOTE - Please do not email the stureps for course-admin issues. For course-admin issues, email Philip or Edward directly at p.quadrio@cse.unsw.edu.au and edward.norman@unsw.edu.au respectively

Course Summary

In this course we will explore ethical issues for computer science, widely conceived. We will examine in detail the nature of ethical claims/moral judgements themselves, and how it is that our beliefs about their nature can affect our understanding of the ethical issues relating to computer science. We will learn about ethical arguments, and how to construct and evaluate them. We will cover utilitarian, deontological, and virtue ethics, and run test cases past real-world computer science cases. We will learn to engage critically with research ethics, as well as the relationship between ethical responsibility and AI frameworks and innovation. There will be considerable discussion of "ethics washing" - the pretence of ethical reasoning by those in positions of power for the purpose of avoiding regulation, As well as explore the related issues of trust, accountability, and privacy in our current online, informationalised world. We will explore equity, bias and fairness in algorithmic and dataset design, as well as the ethics of AI more broadly. We will also explore the ethical ramifications of transparency and explainability - along with their attendant relationships with power, as they relate to computer science in general.

PLEASE COME TO THE IN-PERSON LECTURES...THERE WILL BE SNACKS : )

NOTE - TUTORIALS START IN WEEK 1

Assumed Knowledge

There is no assumed knowledge, but you will need a strong sense of adventure and a willingness to engage with a lot of challenging, open-ended material!

Learning Outcomes

After completing this course, students will be able to:

* articulate the major normative and meta-ethical theories that underpin real, research-level moral debates in both academic and professional contexts.

* define and employ ethical values, principles, and practices for responsible research and innovation of technological and computing advances.

* build, articulate, and justify their own moral arguments - as well as how to analyse moral judgements and moral arguments in general.

* be aware of the ethical issues and pitfalls in their own professional practice of developing novel technologies, including AI (e.g. fairness, transparency, accountability), and learn about existing efforts to mitigate these issues.

* openly and robustly discuss ethical dilemmas around specific technological case studies.

Teaching Strategies

• Lectures ... introduce concepts, show examples
• Tutorials ... reinforce concepts and provide additional examples - TUTORIALS START IN WEEK 1.

Student Conduct (please do read the plagiarism material)

Be excellent to each other.

Be excellent to yourselves.

Also the following is wordy, but important - The Student Code of Conduct ( Information , Policy ) sets out what the University expects from students as members of the UNSW community. As well as the learning, teaching and research environment, the University aims to provide an environment that enables students to achieve their full potential and to provide an experience consistent with the University's values and guiding principles. A condition of enrolment is that students inform themselves of the University's rules and policies affecting them, and conduct themselves accordingly.

In particular, students have the responsibility to observe standards of equity and respect in dealing with every member of the University community. This applies to all activities on UNSW premises and all external activities related to study and research. This includes behaviour in person as well as behaviour on social media, for example Facebook groups set up for the purpose of discussing UNSW courses or course work. Behaviour that is considered in breach of the Student Code Policy as discriminatory, sexually inappropriate, bullying, harassing, invading another's privacy or causing any person to fear for their personal safety is serious misconduct and can lead to severe penalties, including suspension or exclusion from UNSW.

If you have any concerns, you may raise them with your lecturer, or approach the School Ethics Officer , Grievance Officer , or one of the student representatives.

Plagiarism is defined as using the words or ideas of others and presenting them as your own. UNSW and CSE treat plagiarism as academic misconduct, which means that it carries penalties as severe as being excluded from further study at UNSW. There are several on-line sources to help you understand what plagiarism is and how it is dealt with at UNSW:

• Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
• UNSW Plagiarism Procedure

Make sure that you read and understand these. Ignorance is not accepted as an excuse for plagiarism. In particular, you are also responsible that your assignment files are not accessible by anyone but you by setting the correct permissions in your CSE directory and code repository, if using. Note also that plagiarism includes paying or asking another person to do a piece of work for you and then submitting it as your own work.

UNSW has an ongoing commitment to fostering a culture of learning informed by academic integrity. All UNSW staff and students have a responsibility to adhere to this principle of academic integrity. Plagiarism undermines academic integrity and is not tolerated at UNSW. Plagiarism at UNSW is defined as using the words or ideas of others and passing them off as your own.

If you haven't done so yet, please take the time to read the full text of

• UNSW's policy regarding academic honesty and plagiarism

The pages below describe the policies and procedures in more detail:

• Student Code Policy
• Student Misconduct Procedure
• Plagiarism Policy Statement
• Plagiarism Procedure

You should also read the following page which describes your rights and responsibilities in the CSE context:

• Essential Advice for CSE Students

Auf...okay that was pretty long. Are you still reading this? Good. The next bit is about assessments and the course schedule....

Assessment

GRADING BASIS : COMP4920 is graded to UNSW Competency Grading . There are three grades: COMPETENT (CO), COMPETENT WITH MERIT (CM), and NON-COMPETENT (CN). To receive a final grade of CO in this course, students must achieve a grade of CO or CM in Essay 2, and a grade of CO or CM in at least one other assessment. To receive a final grade of CM, students must achieve a grade of CM in Essay 2, and a grade of CM in at least two other assessments. Failure to achieve a grade of CO or CM in Essay 2, and a grade of CO or CM in at least one other assessment will result in a final grade of CN. CN is equivalent to failing the course. In the event that a student receives a final grade of CN, this will result in supplementary assessment or re-enrolling in COMP4920 in a future term, depending on circumstance. In the event that COMP4920 is being taken in the final term of a student's studies towards degree, then a supplementary assessment will be offered independently of any Special Consideration or an ELP. In the event that COMP4920 is not being taken in the final term of a student's studies towards their degree, then a supplementary assessment will be offered only when granted by Special Consideration or an ELP.

Item	Topics	Due	Marks
Essay 1	Weeks 1	Week 3 - Friday March 7, 17:00.	Competency Grading
Group Presentation Slides	Weeks 1-5	Week 7 - Monday March 31, 09:00.	---
Group Presentation	Weeks 1-5	Weeks 7 and 8 in tutorials. (marked collectively).	Competency Grading
Group Report	Week 1-5	Week 8 - Friday April 11, 17:00.	Competency Grading
Essay 2	Week 10	In your tutorials - in person and by hand. 1hr 50min time window. This is a hurdle task	Competency Grading

Course Schedule

Week	Lectures	Tutes		Assignments	Lecturer
1	Tue : Overview, Utilitarianian ethics, and Deontological Ethics Thur : Virtue Ethics and Essay writing skills	Week 1's lecture content			Tue Seb Thu Seb
2	Tue : Ethics, Code of Ethics: Why ethics? And why me? Thur : Computing for Whom? Need-Finding, Alignment, Value Sensitive Design, Responsible Research and Innovation	Week 2's lecture content			Tue Flora Thu Flora
3	Tue : Algorithms in real world (part 1): Representation and Algorithmic Bias Thur : Algorithms in real world (part 2): Algorithmic Decision Making, Privacy, Justice and Fairness	Week 3's lecture content		Essay 1 due, Friday March 7, 17:00.	Tue Flora Thu Flora
4	Tue : Uncovering the Black Box: Trust, Transparency, Explainability Thur : Accountability, Fairness, and Transparency: From Humans to Machines	Week 4's lecture content			Tue Flora Thu Seb
5	Tue : Leadership, Professionalism, and Whistleblowing Thur : Principles in Professional Ethics	Week 5's lecture content			Tue Seb Thu Philip
6	FLEX WEEK	FLEX WEEK		FLEX WEEK	FLEX WEEK
7	Tue : Putting them together: AGI, Sustainability, SDGs and other topics (AI and labour, AI and climate) Thur : Extractivism and Ethics Washing	Week 7's lecture content		Group Presentation Slides due, Monday March 31, 09:00. Group Presentations commence (in tutorials)	Tue Flora Thu Seb
8	Tue : Cybersecurity ethics: research and practice Thur : Meta-ethics	Week 8's lecture content		Group Presentations continued (in tutorials) Group Report due - Friday April 11, 17:00.	Tue Seb Thu Seb
9	Tue : Digital Systems and Moral Responsibility Thur : Q & A - Ask us anything (Second Essay advice)	Week 7,8, and 9's lecture content			Tue Seb Thu Seb
10	Tue : Q & A - Ask us anything (Second Essay advice) Thur : Summary	Week 1-10's lecture content		Essay 2 - in your tutorials - in person and by hand. 1hr 50min time window. Essay 2 is is a hurdle task.	Tue Seb Thu Seb
11	Congratulations!
12	Good luck with your exams!

Resources for Students

Please see Course Work>Lectures>Readings in the menu bar up there on the left for your weekly readings :)

Course Evaluation and Development

This course is evaluated each session using the MyExperience system.

This course has been redesigned completely! Firstly, the entire content and structure, from the lectures and tutorials, to the assessments, was new for Term 3, 2022. It was a big adventure, a little bit of work, and a whole lot of fun.

Everyone's feedback throughout 2022, 2023, and 2024 has meant the world, and we really do mean this :) There have been pages and pages of fantastic suggestions, and we have tried to implement as many of them as we can.

Remember - we need you! Thanks for reading all of this - see you in the lectures :)