In developing these criteria, we gave careful consideration to what might be helpful to a faculty member considering adopting a module. We were especially concerned with providing useful guidance to faculty who might be new to the enterprise of teaching Responsible Computer Science.
- Classification
- Which Knowledge Areas from the Computing Curricula 2013 would this module work in?
- Which “standard” CS courses?
- Are their non-CS courses that the module might work well in, especially in some sort of interdisciplinary collaboration?
- Scaffolding for instructors
- Does the module provide background and experience for delivering, including disciplinary and sub-discipline, both CS perspective as well as other disciplines? What background might we suggest? Does it invite collaboration among faculty from different disciplines?
- Is there background reading or a need for having engaged in interdisciplinary work prior to delivery?
- What materials must the faculty member assemble on their own?
- To what extent does the module require faculty to lead active engagement from students?
- Is there a series of threaded/related assignments that can be used over the course of a semester, or is it an isolated unit? Can we give advice on how to use the module?
- Scaffolding for students
- What pre-requisites will make the module more effective for deeper student learning? What sort of preparedness to analyze social/cultural situations should students have? What ability to synthesize material seems to be expected by the module?
- How closely does the module align with what a person (currently as a student or at some point in the future) might experience in their everyday life? Are there only certain groups of students that would find this activity familiar to their lives?
- Ease of Curricular Incorporation
- How integrated is the assignment in the existing CS curriculum? Does it pair nicely with the existing core CS curriculum? How additive is this – how much (additional) time might an instructor need to include this material? Does the material tend to be primary to the course or more supportive?
- Assessment guidance
- How well-defined is the assessment? Is it there or is there guidance to produce one? Is there guidance for interpreting the results?
- Does it clearly articulate to students what they are to learn?
- Is there a clear rubric for the instructor? If not, is there a notion of how to assess the activity itself?
- Does the rubric support programmatic assessment?
- What exactly does the assessment capture?
- Analysis of the focus of the module
- Does the module take into consideration people at various levels in society in terms of social class, race/ethnicity, gender and so on?
- Whose voices are central to the module, and does it expose power structures that exist, including the power of computing?
- Does the module steer students away from “solutionism”?
- Are the ethical issues that are addressed at the individual level, a group level or at a broader collective level?
- How situated in technical practice is this?
- Are the outcomes associated with current CS industry trends (Fairness, Reliability and safety, Privacy and Security, Inclusiveness, Transparency and Accountability, Value Sensitive Design)
- How much ethical or social theory does it impart/require?
- Does it require technical decisions? Does it involve programming? Does it involve abstract decision-making or applied decision-making (to a particular context) or even implemented decision-making (through programming)?
- Does the module aim at reorienting the way students see the world?
These criteria were developed by Patrick Anderson, Emanuelle Burton, Judy Goldsmith, Colleen Greer, Darakhshan Mir, Jaye Nias, Evan Peck and Marty J. Wolf. These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.