INST 301
Introduction to Information Science
Spring 2016
Assignment P2 - Technical Issues

There is a complex interplay between technology and society. In our case, we are interested in how our society controls, adapts and adapts to new(er) technologies. So the first thing we need to do is to identify what sorts of issues the technology raises. Note that we are interested here in what the technology does, and not (just) in the details of how it works. For example, with encryption we are interested in how secure it is, and in what vulnerabilities might exist, but we don't actually care (for this purpose) about many of the mathematical details of how we could prove that those properties are true. Note also that we are not interested in every detail of a technology, but rather those details that are known to, or can be reasonably expected to, have consequences for the broader society.

There are several sources that you might turn to to identify social issues. A good place to start is to see what's in the news, since societal implications of technology are often the focus of news stories. Wikipedia can lead you to some of these sources, but you don't want to rely on Wikipedia along as a source for inspiration -- dig deeper to see what people are saying. Another good source can be academic papers; searching Google Scholar can help to find these, and you might also consider meeting with a reference librarian at McKeldin Library -- they can often quickly find useful sources that it would take you a long time to locate. And a general Web search (e.g., using Google) will probably find you other commentary.

Reading all of these types of sources can be a great start, but you will essentially be dealing with complete arguments from others in most cases, and you don't really want their arguments -- you want the facts so that you can ultimately construct your own arguments. So after you have a sense for what the issues are, you need to dig in and learn a bit about the technology. You can do that in many ways -- Wikipedia is again a good starting point, as is a general Web search. And again a Librarian can be helpful. The key here is to look beyond the commentary in the news -- which is principally discussing social consequences -- and learn about the technology itself.

Once you have identified the key technical issues that your technology raises, you need to go back and make sure that you are focused only on technical issues that have social consequences. To do that, try to articulate (to yourself, not to turn in) at least one social consequence for every technical issue that you plan to raise. You need to think creatively here. For example, if your technology is not perfectly reliable, then we need some way of mitigating the consequences when it fails. That mitigation might be social. As another example, if your technology is expensive, then only wealthy people may have access to it. The resulting inequities would be a social issue. As yet another example, if your technology relies on a central server (like, for example, Twitter), then the authority that runs that server might be forced to act in some way (e.g., by a court order); that's certainly a social process, and thus it raises social issues. And pretty much every technology is subject to adversarial manipulation -- email has spam, Internet servers face denial of service attacks, etc. Even the electrical power consumed by data centers raises social issues, since we could use that power for other things. The key at this point is to make sure that you filter the technical issues that you are considering to those that have some potential social consequences, and that you don't waste your time on technical issues that don't (one example of an issue bereft of social consequences is the programming language in which a specific computer program is written).

Once you have done this, you are ready to write the assignment. Start with a brief (one-paragraph) introduction of your topic (i.e., more than a tile, less than a page). Then list 3 to 7 technical issues, and for each, explain the issue in some detail. The document you turn in should be about 4 pages in total, single-spaced, so if you list fewer issues you should say more about each. You don't need to identify the social consequences in writing now -- that will be the focus of assignment P3. Finish up with some concluding remarks (e.g., about whether the technical issues are fairly stable, or whether they have been changing rapidly).

Submit your assignment using ELMS before class on the date indicated in the schedule. Only one submission is needed per team, and it can be submitted by either team member. Include all team member names on your submission.