Designing and Evaluating a CS + Law Introduction to Computer Science

该项目的意义和重要性在于开发一种新颖而有吸引力的大学水平计算机科学入门课程。本课程将整合传统的以编程为基础的计算机科学入门课程的主题，并考虑围绕在线隐私和安全的法律和公共政策问题。例如，像二维数组这样的主题将通过在芝加哥这样的城市建立谋杀地图来说明，而不是一些电脑游戏的棋盘；同时还将讨论警察局使用这种地图进行预测性警务的利弊，以及预测性警务提出的法律问题。该项目的具体教育研究目标是检验三个主张。首先，新的入门课程，内容来自一个领域（法律），其中大约50%的学生是女性，是否可以吸引更多的女性在公立大学主修计算机科学。第二，旨在提高女性在计算机领域参与度的做法是否也会提高其他未被充分代表的学生群体的参与度。第三，计算机科学入门课程是否会成功地吸引更多非计算机科学专业的学生选修额外的计算机科学课程，而这门课程是公众广泛感兴趣的主题（法律，尤其是在线隐私和安全法）。

The significance and importance of this project lies in developing a novel and attractive form of a college-level introductory Computer Science course. The course will integrate the traditional topics of a programming-based introductory Computer Science course with a consideration of the law and public policy issues surrounding online privacy and security. For example, a topic like 2-dimensional arrays will be illustrated by building a map of murders in a city like Chicago instead of the board of some computer game; and will be accompanied by discussion of the pros and cons of a Police Department's use of such maps for predictive policing together with the legal issues predictive policing raises. The specific education research goals of the project are testing three claims. First, whether new introductory curricula, with content drawn from a field (law) whose students are roughly 50 percent female, can attract more women to major in Computer Science at a public university. Second, whether the same practices aimed at increasing the participation of women in computing might also increase the participation of other underrepresented student groups. Third, whether an introductory Computer Science course grounded in a subject of wide interest to much of the general public (law, and especially online privacy and security law) will succeed in drawing more non-CS majors into taking additional Computer Science courses.