Increasing ethical awareness in [future] software developers using audience-based writing
Michelle Trim · 2017
This report presents an experiment using a cross-over assignment between an upper-level writing course and a first-year seminar, both required undergraduate computer science courses at a large research university. Logistical challenges and lessons learned are described. Inspired by increased attention to ethics within the computer science academic community and technical communication scholarship connecting power, ethics, and user-centered technology, this writing activity asks students to evaluate and explain a user's risk after a breach or exploit. I argue that the rhetorical concepts of audience and nomos are effective vehicles for engaging students toward a more user-focused ethical awareness within a computer science context. In his recent Call to Action, Wolf (Vice Chair of ACM's Committee on Professional Ethics) echoes this need to complicate an understanding of users with an ethical focus, quoting Updated Code Imperative 3.4: "The needs of people---including users ... should always be a central concern in professional computing [1]."