Instructions: There are four (4) topic areas listed below that are designed to measure your knowledge level specific to the social issues of equity and access relative to class, race and gender. You must respond to #2 and select any other two of these topic areas providing appropriate responses in essay form. In most cases the topic area has several components. Each must be addressed to properly satisfy requirements.
State-wide and in most professional industries, there has been a mandate that college students be more proficient in their writing. While this is not a writing class, all writing assignments will be graded for grammar, syntax and typographical correctness to help address this mandate.
Pay attention to what you are being asked to do (see Grading Rubric below). For example, to describe does not mean to list, but to tell about or illustrate in more than two or three sentences, providing appropriate arguments for your responses using theories discussed in our text. Be sure to address all parts of the topic question as most have multiple parts. A verifiable current event (less than 4 years old) relevant to at least one of the topics you respond to is a fundamental component of your quiz as well. You cannot use information from the text book or any book/article by the author of the text book as a current event. Make sure that your reference has a date of publication. For each chapter quiz and final quiz you are required to find and include at least one reference and reference citation to a current event less than 4 years old (a reference with no date (n.d.) is not acceptable) in answer to at least one question. This requires a reference citation in the text of your answer and a reference at the end of the question to which the reference applies. You must include some information obtained from the reference in your answer. The references must be found on the internet and you must include a URL in your reference so that the reference can be verified.
- (a)Do we, as a society, have a special obligation to disabled persons to ensure that they have full Internet access? (b) Is the argument that by providing improved access and services for disabled persons, non-disabled users will benefit as well, a reasonable argument? Consider that it can be dangerous to reason along this line; for example, suppose that non-disabled persons did not benefit from software applications designed for the disabled. (c) Would that be a reason for not investing in software for disabled people? Defend your answer. Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)
- Theismeyer described racist/hate Web sites in this chapter. (a)Should Web sites that promote racist speech be allowed to thrive on the Internet? (b) Has the proliferation of these sites increased the incidence of racism on a global scale? Or is the Internet, as some have suggested, a force that can help to reduce racism? Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)
- The increased use of expert systems (ES) technology in many professional fields has generated some ethical and social concerns. Some ethical controversies surrounding ESs have to do with critical decisions, including life and death decisions; for example, (a)should “expert doctors” be allowed to make decisions that could directly result in the death of, or cause serious harm to a patient? If so, (b) who is ultimately responsible for the ES’s decision? (c) Is the hospital that owns the particular ES responsible? (d) Should the knowledge engineer who designed the ES be held responsible? Or is the ES itself responsible? In answering these questions, you may want to take a look back in chapter 4, specifically the case involving Therac-25. Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)
- (a)What obligations does the United States have, as a democratic nation concerned with guaranteeing equal opportunities for all its citizens, to ensure that all its citizens have full access to the Internet? (b) Does the United States also have obligations to developing countries to ensure that they have global access to the Internet? If so, (c) What is the extent of those obligations? If not, (d) Why? For example, (e) Should engineers working in the United States and other developed countries design applications to ensure that people living in remote areas with low connectivity and poor bandwidth have reasonable Internet access? If so, (f) Who should pay for the development of these software applications? If not, (g) Why? Please elaborate (beyond a yes or no answer) and provide your “theoretical” rationale in support of your responses. (comprehension)
