Social Studies of Computer Science Reading Group

We meet once a week on Fridays at 2PM in the Software Engineering Lab's "Debugging Room" (Bahen 3234), starting January 20, 2012 to discuss the philosophy, history, sociology and other studies of computer science as a discipline. Examples of discussions include the structure of how we do our research in CS, relevant epistemology and research ethics, CS education, CS's role in society, and the organization and future of the discipline. All are welcome to attend.

For suggestions for papers and paper topics, questions about the group, etc, contact Elizabeth (patitsas at cs dot toronto dot edu). For announcements and updates, join our mailing list, which you can do by sending a blank email to ssocs-rg+subscribe@googlegroups.com.

Upcoming papers

January 20: epistemological traditions in CS
Tedre and Sutinen, 2008: Three Traditions of Computing: What Educators Should Know. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08993400802332332#s902471579

optional: Eden, 2007: Three Paradigms of Computer Science. http://www.springerlink.com/content/y2858v6v05451640/
February 3: conference-based research in CS
Anderson, 2009: Conference Reviewing Considered Harmful. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1531815
February 10: history of CS at U of T
Campbell, 2006: The premise of computer science: Establishing modern computing at the University of Toronto (1945--1964). Read the Introduction (pg 1-10) and the Conclusion (pg 300-324 -- don't worry, it's double-spaced). Feel free to read more if interested; depending on interest we might read more of it another week. http://main.library.utoronto.ca/webcat/goto_catalogue_url.cfm?where=ckey&what=6201933
February 17: CS research ethics
Singer and Vinson, 2002: Ethical Issues in Empirical Studies of Software Engineering. http://cogprints.org/3299/
homework for the break: let Elizabeth know what topics you'd like to discuss after the break; this week's article is to give a starting point on possible directions
March 2: epistemology
WF McComas, 1998: Ten myths of science: Reexamining what we think we know. http://coehp.uark.edu/pase/TheMythsOfScience.pdf
March 9: overview of philosophy of CS
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2008: The Philosophy of Computer Science. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/

Maybe pile:

(Papers that somebody has proposed, and need a seconder to be added to the "upcoming papers" list.)

something on the philosophy of AI? http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2005/entries/logic-ai/ is a starting point
[structure/education] Rowe, 2010: Confessions of a Central Planner. http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthwhile_canadian_initi/2010/10/confessions-of-a-central-planner.html
[education] Gruba et al, 2004: What Drives Curriculum Change? http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=979983
[epistemology] http://simula.no/research/se/publications/SE.5.Joergensen.2004.c/simula_pdf_file
[role of industry] something like http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr035460 ?
[peer review] http://www.nature.com/drugdisc/news/articles/419772a.html plus the Rooter paper from http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ ?
[more epistemology!] http://www.jstor.org/stable/688902
[epistemology of logic in CS] http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2687775
[philosophy of CS] stuff from http://www.springerlink.com/content/v85760658747/?p=21834b6928a7467481d52e0de286e78e&pi=0 ?
[formal methods] the Ten Commandments of Formal Methods http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.18.4156 with follow-up "ten years after" paper
[ethics/professionalism] Resnik's "The Ethics of Science", 1998, chapter 3 "Science as a Profession" plus the ACM Code of Ethics
[practical stuff] excepts from Marian Petre's "Unwritten Rules of PhD Research"

Last update: Feb 10, 2012.