Autumn Quarter 2009, Wednesdays 4:30 to 7:30 pm INSC 543 / CSE 599P Instructors: Batya Friedman and Alan Borning
Value Sensitive Design is a design methodology for information technology systems that accounts for human values in a principled and comprehensive manner throughout the design process. Value Sensitive Design is primarily concerned with values that center on human well being, human dignity, justice, welfare, and human rights. Specific values include trust, accountability, freedom from bias, access, autonomy, privacy, sustainability, and consent. This course will provide a thorough introduction to Value Sensitive Design's interactional theory, direct and indirect stakeholder analyses, and tripartite methodology of conceptual, technical, and empirical investigations. The theory and methods of Value Sensitive Design are to be used in consort with other existing technical and design methods. Ultimately, Value Sensitive Design requires that we broaden the goals and criteria for judging the quality of information systems to include those that advance human values. The most significant component of the work in the course will be a quarter-long project in which students apply Value Sensitive Design to a project of their choosing. We encourage students to bring their own projects, in particular ones that could be an aspect of their dissertation research. There are also already some students who will be in the course with some very interesting projects, and who are looking for project partners. In addition, there will be a set of readings, some short writing assignments, and some focused design activities. The course will be taught studio-style, with one 3 hour session Wednesdays 4:30 - 7:20 pm (with breaks of course!). There will be a mix of lectures, design activities, and reflection during the class. We welcome PhD and MS students from a variety of disciplines, including the Information School, Computer Science & Engineering, Human Centered Design and Engineering, DXARTS, Biomedical and Health Informatics, Geography, Psychology, and others. Information School students should register for INSC 543, and CSE students for CSE 599P. Others - take your pick (though please try to keep the enrollments even between the two course numbers.) This is a 4 credit graded course, but due to a quirk of the CSE 599 course number, CSE 599P is only 3 credits. Students can register with Alan Borning for 1 additional unit of CSE 600 to make up the difference if they want. In CSE, this course counts toward the Post-Quals Ph.D. Requirement. (We are trying to get this on the books as a single cross-listed course, but for now we've got the two course numbers.) For more information, including some project ideas, please see http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse599p/09au/ , or contact either Batya (batya at u.washington.edu) or Alan (borning at cs.washington.edu ). We hope you'll join us! Batya and Alan
