SPEAIT
..., "Social, Professional, and Ethical Aspects of Information Technology" or "The Course With The Longest Title" has been in the IT College curricula since the second year of the College (2001, the Estonian version; the current English one was added in 2015 for the then-new Cyber Security Engineering curriculum), and it has gone on to the university era. Being a first-year introductory course, it is a mixture of various topics like IT culture and professionalism, tech history, legal issues and more - the main point is to raise awareness of different not-so-technical dimensions surrounding IT and provide the kind of wider view/knowledge that distinguishes a professional from a 'code monkey'. A secondary goal is to provide students with skills in academic writing, reviewing, presentation and public speaking, being the first training towards the future graduate thesis.
Earlier, the whole course was taught by Kaido Kikkas - during the 2022/2023 academic year, Kristjan Karmo came along. Since Autumn 2023, lectures are held by Kaido and seminars are chaired by Kristjan (who will also grade the course). The Autumn 2024 run will be the first synchronous (same time, same place) e-course, replacing the physical lectures and seminars with similar online events using the university's MS Teams environment.
In Short
- Course code: ICS0006 (also as ICY0004 in Estonian versions and formerly ICM0001 in the IS Analysis M.Sc. programme)
- Volume: 6.0 ECTS
- Location: the university's MS Teams (the first online run!)
- Classes: weekly lecture (given by Kaido on Tuesdays at 10.00-11.30, starting from Sept 3) and weekly seminars (led by Kristjan, during the 2nd half-term starting on October 29 - on Wednesdays for IVSB12 (Group 2) and on Thursdays for IVSB11 (Group 1) at 08.15-09.45.
- Homework: one three-part (paper, slides, presentation) homework sets, reviews, optional blogging. Note: a very limited number of faster students will get the chance to do second presentation set (likely giving max grade without the exam).
- Grading: exam (but the bulk of the work is done during the term - the exam will only give up to 30 points!)
- Staff: Kaido Kikkas (lectures; see the bottom of the page) and Kristjan Karmo (seminars)
Data Tables
Note: these will be published when the seminars start - to provide quick overview of the standings and schedules.
Working in MS Teams
The Teams-based course form is used for the first time for this course in Autumn 2024, but it has been used at the Spring-term Social Engineering course for a couple of years already. We will use synchronous (same time, same place) e-learning - the lectures and seminars take place according to the university schedule.
Lectures (by Kaido) will be classic lectures combined with short (~5 min; typically 2-4 in a lecture) discussion breaks. As a rule, please keep your camera and microphone off during the lecture (to conserve bandwidth - we will likely have 60-70 people around). During the lecture parts, Kaido will talk and show the accompanying slides - but in addition to listening, you can reflect/feedback/discuss the topic in the Teams chat which will be open throughout the lecture. During the discussion breaks, Kaido will display the discussion points (typically, some kind of question) and everyone will (hopefully) discuss these in the chat. Meanwhile, Kaido will look over the chat and comment on more interesting points there. After the discussion break, the lecture will continue.
Seminars (by Kristjan) will be chaired by the lecturer, but the bulk of the time will be used for your presentations (you should register them at least by the 7nd week on these pages: Group 1 and Group 2). Each presentation should take about 15 minutes with some minutes for questions/discussion. Like at lectures, most people should keep the microphone and camera off - the exceptions are Kristjan and the person currently presenting (it is also recommended to show yourself in camera to add more personal touch). And like at lectures, the chat will be open throughout the seminar.
We will add people (the ones who have declared it by that time) to the course on Monday, September 2 (the first lecture will be on Tuesday). People who want to join later should contact either Kaido or Kristjan and ask to be added to the group!
The events (lectures and seminars) will be recorded, the recordings will be available from the same Teams group.
Course Organization
Every student is expected to do at least one (another one is optional - but is only available in very limited volume, also depending on the final number of participants) set of homework consisting of a 5-10 page essay, a set of ~10 slides and an oral presentation in a seminar.
Points to consider:
- In earlier years, there was a constant problem with attending the seminars towards the end of the term. This year, there will be an attendance check at both lectures and seminars (using the session participation list of MS Teams as well as the actual listing). Attending at least 10 lectures out of 16 AND 5 seminars out of 8 is required to pass the course.
- Everyone should pick a suitable time for the (first) presentation and register it on the schedule pages ( Group 1 and Group 2) by the beginning of Week 7 - October 14 (second presentation can be set later by those who have completed the first - but it is 'first come, first served'). It is recommended to do the first presentation as soon as possible (other courses will start adding workload at the end of the semester!).
- Due to some negative experience with people missing their presentation without notice (e.g. five people were registered, two actually presented - half the seminar time got wasted), there is a rule: if you do not present your work at the registered time without a valid reason (e.g. illness, being abroad etc), there will be no second chance during the term. People with valid reasons will get a new chance, but please try to inform Kristjan ASAP!
- The paper should be sent in BEFORE the presentation (submitting on the same day after presenting will be accepted if necessary - but earlier is better). In case of the submission being late, the following penalty system applies: up to one week late - minus 10%, 1-2 weeks - minus 30%, 2-3 weeks - minus 50%, more than 3 weeks - no points.
- In order to present the second homework, the first one must be done in full (all three components) - although you may register the second time before doing the first, be sure to actually present the first one!
- Papers may be written either as standalone documents (PDF is the most universal option) or to the IT College wiki. Wiki-based works share the same requirements, the only exception being no need for a dedicated title page (and be sure to meet the necessary volume - it is harder to track on wiki!).
Papers should have a clear topic, good presentation of the problem, proper argumentation and formal qualities (academic style, proper references etc). You can use the official formatting guidelines of the university.
NB!!! The final deadline for all other writings (including reviews, blogs etc) is the last day of the term proper, or Friday December 20 (extensions can be granted for compelling reasons (illness etc).
WARNING - write your papers by yourself. Presenting a paper downloaded from somewhere is more serious an academic offense than someone fresh out of secondary school may think - flunking just the course is a luckier result, but people may also get booted from the school for proven plagiarism. This also applies for partial "borrowing" - rules dictate that all used material be properly referenced (see also here).
The above also applies to the modern practice of using AI to write the paper. Why this is not a good idea:
- The obvious: you will not learn much (other than setting up the tool - this may be a useful skill by itself, but will not compensate other losses).
- You will have to present the paper. There is a visible difference between self-researched presentation and one prepared by someone/something else.
- Sometime later, you will have to write and present your thesis. Ghostwriting denies you a good preparatory exercise provided by this course.
- Someday quite soon, AI will kick lazy and unoriginal people out of the labour market. Try not to be one of those.
- Additionally, OpenAI has recently been reported as getting stupider by several sources. If you decide to use it, you will be also responsible for those... creative errors. :P
(Note about a silver lining of the AI issue: it is a valuable addition to the course as a paper/presentation/discussion material!)
Presentation slides should bring out the important, be suitably detailed, well-designed and properly formatted. See a guide here.
Oral presentation should present the material clearly, have good argumentation and answers to possible questions, somewhat also considering confidence, style and handling the audience. Be prepared to answer at least some questions (if the audience will not ask, the lecturer will!)
Reviews should address the topic, argumentation and formal side, see also some guidelines here.
The first (mandatory) paper gives up to 25 points, slides up to 10 and oral presentation up to 15 points, for the second homework the same numbers are 20, 5 and 10. Reviewing a peer's homework gives up to 10 points.
Another way to earn points is to write a blog related to the course topics (both using an existing blog or creating a new one are OK). You may reflect on the course (ideas, suggestions and also constructive criticism are all OK), College events (but again, related to the course topics), tech news, write software or hardware reviews etc. The blog should be in English, the rule of thumb in points is "one point for each relevant post", up to 10 points (note that you are free to use the blog for other kinds of posts as well, but the course points will be only awarded for the ones that relate to the course) . Blogging is not mandatory for this version of the course.
It is also possible to earn points by reading and reviewing relevant books - up to 2 in total, for up to 5 points per book. Books can be picked from a reading list here, but you may choose something else, too. The length of a book review should be approximately one page, containing both a short overview (title, author, time of publishing), main points and the argumented evaluation by the reviewer.
Finally, the lecturers can award bonus points for original solutions, active participation in discussions etc. Both Kaido and Kristjan can award up to 5 bonus points (lectures/seminars), so the maximum will be 10.
The grade system is typical to most of Estonian higher education:
50 and less: 0 51 - 60: 1 61 - 70: 2 71 - 80: 3 81 - 90: 4 91 and more: 5
The exam can add up to 30 points.
Thus, passing the course by just doing the exam is not possible - and anyone ignoring the wide choice of point-earning possibilities (described above) is probably... not that bright.
Exam
The exam dates will be announced here as they become known.
The default form of the exam is conversation on one (chosen by the students) of three randomly-chosen topics. The student will receive the topics, pick one, get ~10 minutes for preparation, and then have a ~10-minute chat with Kristjan. The earlier form of essay-writing is regrettably not feasible anymore.
Note: Kristjan can suggest alternative ways of passing the exam if applicable.
The exam result will be ADDED to the total, so it cannot have any bad effect on your result. Example: Mr B. comes to the exam with 57 points earned before and does not do well, receiving only 5 points out of 30. His final result, however, is 57 + 5 = 62, meaning the grade of "satisfactory" (2).
