Schedule and Assignments (Spring 2021)

This schedule is subject to change. Please check back frequently.

Week Date Topics Lecturer Zoom Link Readings and Assignments
1 Tuesday 3/30 UI MINI UNIT
Course Overview; Inferential Statistics; Respectful User Interfaces [slides]
(dark patterns, nudging/manipulative interfaces, respectful interfaces, confidence intervals, p values)		 Blase CMSC only
  • Assignment 1 due Thursday, 4/1 (11:59pm)
Thursday 4/1 DATA UNIT
Data: Context and Quality [slides]
(data collection, data preparation, data cleaning, missing data)		 Raul Shared
2 Tuesday 4/6 DATA UNIT
Pitfalls in Inferential Statistics [slides]
(multiple hypothesis testing, correction for multiple testing, false discovery rate, statistical vs. practical significance)		 Raul Shared
  • Reading Response 1 due Monday, 4/5 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 2 due Thursday, 4/8 (11:59pm)
Thursday 4/8 DATA UNIT
Ethical Experiments [slides]
(designing robust and reliable experiments, a/b testing, protection of human subjects)		 Blase Shared
3 Tuesday 4/13 WORLD UNIT
Heterogeneous Data Representations and Heterogeneous Users [slides]
(data formats, legacy systems, internationalization, engineering for accessibility)		 Blase CMSC only
  • Reading Response 2 due Monday, 4/12 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 3 due Thursday, 4/15 (11:59pm)
Thursday 4/15 WORLD UNIT
Computing's Impact on the Environment [slides]
(energy usage of systems, proofs of work, engineering technologies for the global south, disposal of devices)		 Blase CMSC only
4 Tuesday 4/20 MACHINE LEARNING UNIT
Introduction to Machine Learning [slides]
(optimization vs. generalization, training and test data, models, learning)		 Raul Shared
  • Reading Response 3 due Monday, 4/19 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 4 due Thursday, 4/22 (11:59pm)
Thursday 4/22 MACHINE LEARNING UNIT
Machine Learning in the Wild [slides]
(training data, feature engineering, information leakage, concept drift, algorithmic decision making)		 Raul Shared
5 Tuesday 4/27 MACHINE LEARNING UNIT
Unfair and Biased Algorithms [slides]
(the biases of models, the biases of data, documenting algorithms)		 Blase Shared
  • Reading Response 4 due Monday, 4/26 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 5 due Thursday, 4/29 (11:59pm)
Thursday 4/29 MACHINE LEARNING UNIT
The Biases of Language Data; Explainable Algorithms [slides]
(biases of NLP/vision models, explainable ML, algorithm audits; bonus discussion of the Linux research incident)		 Blase CMSC only
6 Tuesday 5/4 PRIVACY UNIT
Defining and Enforcing Privacy [slides]
(privacy philosophy, law, and regulation)		 Blase Shared
  • Reading Response 5 due Monday, 5/3 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 6 due Thursday, 5/6 (11:59pm)
Thursday 5/6 PRIVACY UNIT
Anonymity [slides]
(personally identifiable information, the difficulty of anonymizing data, k-anonymity, deanonymization)		 Blase Shared
7 Tuesday 5/11 PRIVACY UNIT
Statistical Privacy [slides]
(differential privacy)		 Raul Shared
  • Reading Response 6 due Monday, 5/10 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 7 due Thursday, 5/13 (11:59pm)
Thursday 5/13 PRIVACY UNIT
Privacy Engineering [slides]
(privacy by design, privacy impact assessments)		 Blase CMSC only
8 Tuesday 5/18 LIFECYCLES MINI UNIT
The Lifecycles of Systems and Data [slides]
(erasure rights, data access rights, data portability, machine unlearning, biomedical data)		 Blase CMSC only
  • Reading Response 7 due Monday, 5/17 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 8 due Thursday, 5/20 (11:59pm)
Thursday 5/20 TRACKING & SURVEILLANCE UNIT
Pervasive Surveillance Systems [slides]
(facial recognition, DNA data, cameras in urban environments, predictive policing)		 Blase CMSC only
9 Tuesday 5/25 TRACKING & SURVEILLANCE UNIT
Tracking and Inference Algorithms [slides]
(personalization/inference, ad tech, ed tech, robots)		 Blase CMSC only
  • Reading Response 8 due Monday, 5/24 (11:59pm).
  • Assignment 9 due Thursday, 5/27 (11:59pm)
  • Reading Response 9 due Thursday, 5/27 (11:59pm).
Thursday 5/27 POLITICIZED ECOSYSTEMS MINI UNIT
Blame and Responsibility [slides]
(ownership/licensing of code, politicization of technologies, export rules, crypto wars, funding models, automation's impact on the workforce)		 Blase CMSC only