For the take-home midterm exam, you are asked to answer the five bundles of questions below. You should not write an *essay* on any of these questions. Instead, you should try to focus your answers and get to your point(s) in a tight and compact form. Please submit a printout of your answers (no electronic mail, handwritten sheets, or URLs, please!) in class or at the CIS front office by **Friday, March 30, 2001**. Please number your answers as indicated (e.g. 1.(1) ... (2) ... (3) 2.(1) ... (2) ... etc. Unless you are specifically asked to give examples from the *text*, such examples may also come from other sources (e.g. your brain!). 1. Bias in computer systems: In essay 1, Friedman and Nissenbaum identify three categories of bias in computer systems. (1) Name and define these three kinds of bias. For each of these three categories, (2) give a brief example of such bias and (3) explain why the example is of the respective kind. 2. Accountability in a computerized society: In essay 2, Nissenbaum worries about the erosion of accountability in computerized societies. She identifies four barriers to accountability in this context. (1) Name and define each of these barriers. For each of these barriers, (2) come up with a brief example and (3) argue why the example is of that kind. (4) Describe her three suggested strategies for restoring accountability. 3. Social impact statements: In essay 7, Shneiderman and Rose describe a process for formulating and enforcing social impact statements in the design, implementation, and maintenance of software artifacts. (1) Sketch briefly a real or fictitious software project, where such statements may be beneficial. For that project, (2) identify potential concerns, access barriers, misuse, etc. Then (3) propose in what ways design changes could mitigate some of these shortcomings. 4. Eliminating a hardware switch: In essay 15, Tang describes an actual production decision that had to weigh economic against social values. (1) Describe the actual problem, the main points of the ensuing discussion, and the final outcome(s). (2) In the companies internal study, did customers prefer devices that left them in control regarding the protection of their privacy? (3) If given such control, did people actively exert it? 5. Social choice about privacy: In essay 17, Agre and Mailloux discuss the study of Intelligent Vehicle Systems in the United States of America. (1) List four *good* reasons (without explaining why they are good ones :-)) for having such a system in place. (2) List four *valid* concerns about implementing such a system and explain why they are valid (such validity may depend on the actual nature of the IVHS).
Copyright 2001 Michael Huth (huth@cis.ksu.edu).