Content
Major readings
- O’Neil (2016)
- D’Ignazio and Klein (2020)
- Bender et al. (2021)
- Elliott, Stokes, and Cao (2018)
- Washington and Kuo (2020)
- Lum and Isaac (2016)
- Angwin et al. (2016)
Over the course of the semester, we have engaged in structured thinking about data science ethics. You have had readings, class discussions, and written assignments that inform your thinking about data science ethics and challenge you to analyze and articulate the ethical implications of your work.
Much of the work we have done in data science ethics to date has focused on raising awareness, building comprehension of fundamental issues, application of acquired knowledge, and analysis. The highest level in Bloom’s taxonomy is evaluation.
In this essay assignment, you will evaluate actors in real-world situations where data science ethics are in play.
You will write an essay on data science ethics, technology, and society (in R Markdown). In addition to the readings listed above, expect to do some additional research relevant to your topic. This is not a reflection or opinion paper – you should support your arguments with citations throughout.
Please read the description of the formal essay below before completing Part 1.
Feedback will be quick and will either encourage you to proceed, or will redirect.
In previous capstones, students often drew on the following themes in their writing about data science ethics. This list is not exhaustive.
In your essay, you should critically evaluate the actors in a real-world data science episode in which ethical considerations are salient.
For example, here is a generic essay prompt:
The chapter on data science ethics in Baumer, Kaplan, and Horton (2021) includes some short examples of this type of analysis.
A similar idea is:
Your essay should be 1000–1500 words in length, or about 3-5 pages.
Render your R Markdown document as HTML. Submit your HTML file to Moodle.
Criteria | Seven | Eight | Nine |
---|---|---|---|
Overall Quality | No evaluation is made. Content is mostly description of the ethical dilemma. No title. Ideas are not clearly connected. No outside references. Many grammatical and/or formatting errors. | Ethical dilemma is described, but no evaluation is made. Opinions or claims are unsubstantiated. | Actors are clearly evaluated in reference to specific ethical principles. Structure of essay is clear. Ideas are clearly connected. Outside research is relevant, authoritative, and appropriately sourced. Formatting makes essay more readable. |