Essay Specs

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Your essay is due at the end of the semester, here is what you are expected to do, and how it will be graded.

Objective

The aim of the essay is for you to demonstrate that you have understood some of the broader applications and implications of computing in a particular activity, field of science, or aspect of society. Your objective should be to write a technically accurate, compelling, convincing argument around the use of computing for contributing to the solution of some problem in our society at large.

Essay Structure

Your essay should cover the following types of content, structured in a concise and clear manner.

• Introduction - What are the problems in this field of applications/industry/research? What is role of computing in this application? What are the computational problems that need to be solved to make it possible?

• Computing in context - How computing can or cannot help solve these problems?

  • If there are existing solutions with computing, what are they? Briefly describe the existing approaches and include diagrams and relevant references if necessary.
    • Did the use of computing make possible something that simply did not exist before, or did it simply streamline or speed up a task that was previously done by people?
    • How difficult are these computing problems – e.g. easy to solve with textbook material, needs some development, or are open problems?
  • If computing is not currently used for some of these problems, why is that? – list technical and societal reasons, with necessary references.

• Discussions - What are the implications in this field? Does it create new opportunities, or new risks or dangers for society?

• Outlook - What do you think will happen in the next 5-10 years in this field? What technical and societal advances will need to be in place for this to become reality? Will you be interested in playing a part?

Suggestions: In most cases your essay will be on a topic that are of interest and you do not already know well. If this is true then you will first need to find and read a number of technical references of good quality in order to develop and understanding of the field and of its problems and available/potential solutions.

Potential Topics

You can choose your own topic. Some suggestions are below.

• Analyze a specific application and the use of computing in it.

  • ride sharing (e.g. Uber), Air-BnB;
  • app store;
  • electronic voting;
  • traveling - pricing and booking of flights (e.g. expedia);
  • twitter and facebook;
  • running an airport;
  • filing taxes;
  • medicare
  • running a supermarket (e.g. woolworth, coles, bunnings)
  • controling traffic in a city.

• Choose an industry and do the same analysis.

  • finance and banking;
  • agriculture;
  • retail;
  • transportation;
  • energy market, supplying electricity to a city.

• Computing in an academic discipline: Choose a discipline and examine how computing is being used and could be used in solving problems within that discipline.

  • biology and medicine
  • history or literature
  • mathematics
  • earth sciences
  • visual art and music

Format

Your essay should be no less than 1000 words, and no more than 1500 words in length, plus diagrams, illustrations, and references. You should submit it in PDF format, the filename should be “u1234567_*.pdf” where “u1234567” is your ANU UID. The font size should be at least 12pt. With normal margins, single space and 12pt type, 1500 words is around 3-4 pages, editors such as word or google docs have utilities to help count the number of words in your document.

Grading

• Essay due: Monday 30 May 9am, standard late-day policy applies.
• Your essay counts for 10% of the final grade in this class.
• Here are the criteria against which your essay will be graded:
  • Clarity and cogency of the arguments you make
  • Quality of the evidence you cite; is it just your opinion, or have you demonstrated your case.
  • Clarity of language and writing.
  • Clarity of structure of the document and descriptions.
  • Clarity of technical narrative and illustrations (if needed).
  • Correct referencing. Clearly state what are your views and what are views, argument or evidence from other people. Cite the scientific or non-scientific sources that your argument builds upon. If you copy one or several sentences from another text, the copied text should be enclosed in quotes and the source that it is taken from should be clearly indicated.

30 March, 2016
712 words

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