Cross-Cutting Themes Term 1

Being a Computer Scientist isn’t just about Programming

• ‘Computer science is the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their hardware and software designs, their applications, and their impact on society’

• Involves a whole range of other skills - requirements engineering, design, ethical thinking, user research etc

• Even if you don’t end up using all of these yourself, you’ll likely be working with people who do and need to be able to communicate with them

• Problem solving is crucial, and this doesn’t just mean solving technical problems

Types of Problem Solving

• Seeing the bigger picture

• Identifying potential risks and unintended consequences

• Understanding a current problem

• Identifying requirements

• Designing a solution that meets requirements

• Negotiating trade-offs

A Computer Scientist has Legal and Ethical Obligations

• Legal requirements govern behaviours

• Ethics - moral principles. Ethics codes provide rules of conduct recognised by a given group, e.g. a professional body

• Best practice - not just sticking to legal requirements as a bare minimum, but trying to do what is ethically right

Codes of Conduct/Codes of Ethics

• BCS code of conduct

  • Professional competence and integrity - e.g., only completing work that is within your competency, commitment to continued professional development and learning

  • Public interest - e.g., ‘have due regard for public health, privacy, security and wellbeing of others and the environment’, not discriminating against others, ‘promote equal access to the benefit of IT’

  • Duty to the profession - e.g., upholding the profession’s reputation

• ACM code of ethics

• Codes of conduct suggest how members should behave, in relation to their employer and wider society

• Legal frameworks

  • GDPR - EU’s data privacy law (2018): grants rights to ‘data subjects’ and dictates how personal data should be stored and used

  • Equality Act (2010): failure to design for inclusiveness and accessibility may constitute unfair discrimination

  • Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988): software copyright (covers licences etc), licences of use, etc

Consequences of breaking the law when it comes to personal data storage and usage

• Major fines - 4% of turnover

• British Airways - £183 million (2019)

• Marriott Hotels - £99 million (2019)

• Facebook (Cambridge analytical Scandal) - £500,000 (2018)

• Reputational damage

• Harm to end-users

Importance of Managing Risk

• Anticipating and minimising unintended consequences

  • Many possible unintended consequences to be aware of:

    • Potential misuse, malevolent actors

    • Negative effects on wellbeing

    • Inadequate protection of privacy and security

  • Anticipating these risks and thinking about how to minimise them is a key part of what it means to be a problem-solver

• Building dependable systems

  • Very important property for most systems

  • ‘Dependability is defined as that property of a computer system such that reliance can justifiably be placed on the service it delivers’

  • There are ways of enhancing dependability (through, e.g., removing faults, being fault-tolerant, etc)

• Building error-tolerant systems

  • Design systems that minimise potential for human error, detect and correct human error, and tolerate human error

  • Norman: design for errors, assume errors will occur and plan for error recovery, e.g. make it easy to reverse actions

• Significance of SDLC and requirements engineering

  • Good planning and analysis stages should enable consideration of potential risk

  • Incomplete requirements are a key cause of project failure, so identifying the right requirements is crucial

Importance of Considering End-Users

Vital to consider end-users throughout the SDLC

Why?

• Computing - used by many people (no longer just technical professionals)

• People have diverse needs, desires, capabilities and limitations

System should be accessible and have good usability

Accessibility:

• ‘Digital accessibility means disregarding and building your digital offerings so that, regardless of a person's mental/physical ability, they can still interact with your website, app, or other digital product in a meaningful and equal way’

• Accessible design is often good for everyone - concept of universal design

Usability:

• Learnability - the system should be easy to learn

• Efficiency - the system should be efficient to use

• Memorability - the system should be easy to remember

• Errors - the system should have a low error rate

• Satisfaction - the system should be satisfying to use

However there are many obstacles:

• Users may not know what they want, or struggle to articulate it

• Users may not be aware of the technical possibilities and constraints

• Tensions between different stakeholder and user needs