DAT315/DIT199, Period 2, 2017: The Computer Scientist in Society

Week 7:

Lecture at 1315 on Wednesday 13^th December. And now for something completely different: Ethics, from Ancient Greece to spam mail and Wittgenstein. (slides)

Exercise No new exercises; revise your summary if your TA requires it. Read the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Course responsible

John Hughes (rjmh@chalmers.se)

Course assistants

· Inari Listenmaa (inari.listenmaa@cse.gu.se)

· Jonatan Kilhamn (jonkil@chalmers.se)

Jonatan is leaving us after the break, so if you need to ask anything, email one of the rest of us.

· Simon Robillard (simon.robillard@chalmers.se)

Student representatives

· Linda Hamp (hampl@student.chalmers.se)

· Joel Gustafsson (gujoel@student.chalmers.se)

· Frederik Hanghøj Iversen (hanghj@student.chalmers.se)

· Lamiya Yagublu (yagublu@student.chalmers.se)

· Ibrahim Fayaz (fayaz@student.chalmers.se)

What is the course about?

You will learn the skills to find, use, and explain relevant ideas from the scientific literature—in both speech and writing—and you will, as a part of the course, develop a Masters thesis proposal which you may re-use for your own thesis. The course has a new teacher this year, and will be taught a little differently from previous years as a result; expect this web page to develop as the course progresses.

Lectures

Lectures are at 1315 on Wednesdays in HB2. Here is the schedule in TimeEdit. There will be lectures most weeks, but not all. They will be announced on this page in advance. The slides will be posted here, but note that my slides are not intended to be self-contained—they will not mean much to you unless you attend the lecture.

Exercises

Most of the work in the course is in the exercises. Each week this page will specify the work you should be doing; expect it to take around half your time. You pass the course by completing the exercises satisfactorily. It is important to keep to the deadlines for submitting the exercises, because your submissions will form the basis of your small group tuition.

Small group tuition

New for this year, there will be small group tuition sessions. Each student will give a presentation in one session, and take part in a writing workshop in another. There will be a (limited) choice of times for your small group session, at the following times:

· Presentations: November 16, 20 and 21.

· Writing workshops: November 23, 24, 27.

Each session will be two hours and limited to five participants plus a tutor. A doodle for you to book your session will be made available from each exercise description page.

Schema

Week 1	Lecture at 1315 on Wednesday 1^st November The Scientific Literature (slides). Birgit Grohe will talk about preparing for your Masters thesis in the second half of the lecture.	Exercise You should carry out a small literature survey, using the methods discussed in the lecture.
Week 2	Lecture at 1315 on Wednesday 8^th November Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking (slides, and some accompanying notes).	Exercise You should prepare a fifteen-minute presentation for your class-mates on the papers you have studied.
Week 3	Lecture at 1315 on Wednesday 15^th November How to write a paper (slides).	Exercise You should write a summary for your class mates of the papers you have studied.
Week 4	Lecture at 1315 on Wednesday 22^nd November Reviewing a technical document (slides); writing a proposal (slides).	Exercise You should review two summaries written by other students—see part 2 of the summary exercise for details. You should also write the first draft of a Masters thesis proposal.
Week 5	No lecture this week.	Exercise The deadline for your first draft thesis proposal is on Wednesday. Please make sure also that you send your own reviews of other students’ summaries on time—your classmates need your input. During the coming week you should complete the final version of your own summary (see part 3 of the exercise).
Week 6	No lecture this week.	Exercise The deadline for completing your summary is on Wednesday. You should also receive feedback on your draft Masters thesis proposal. During the coming week you should complete the final version of your Masters thesis proposal. Note that this is a different lab in the Fire system: make sure you submit to the right one!
Week 7:	Lecture at 1315 on Wednesday 13^th December. And now for something completely different: Ethics, from Ancient Greece to spam mail and Wittgenstein. (slides)	Exercise No new exercises; revise your summary if your TA requires it. Read the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

Recommended reading

You should read Joseph Williams’ book, Style: toward clarity and grace (chapters 1—8), which is a tutorial on technical writing. Beware: Williams wrote several other books with similar titles—make sure you get this one. The book is out of print, but you will be able to find copies. For example, it is available from amazon.com (but you will need to wait for your copy to be shipped from the USA).

For presentation stills, I heartily recommend Praktisk Retorik by Göran Hägg, to students who can read Swedish. It isn’t necessary to read this book for this course—and it’s focus isn’t particularly on technical presentations—but it is both hugely enjoyable to read, and hugely influential on all presentations you will make afterwards. Unfortunately, there seems to be no English translation, which is a real shame—it’s a gem.