Lectures

Last Updated:

Venue: Civil Engineering Lecture Theatre G1 (H20-G1)

Time: Tuesday, 10.00 - 12.00

Lectures may not be given every week.

Week 12 (Tuesday June 2)

Oral exam discussion

Week 0 (March 2)

Ken Robinson
Lecturer in Charge, SENG4921
School of Computer Science and Engineering UNSW.

Introduction to Professional Issues and Ethics course for 2008.

Week 1 (March 10)

Stephen Cohen
School of History and Philosophy, UNSW
Director, Graduate Programs in Professional Ethics

Will give part 1 of a talk on ethics and professionalism

“Theoretical Underpinnings of Ethics”

Stephen Cohen is the managing director of Denise Grannall & Associates. He consults with a number of large government and private companies on ethics.

Week 2 (March 17)

Stephen Cohen
School of History and Philosophy, UNSW

presents part 2 of his talk on Ethics and Professionalism

“Moral Reasoning & Professional Ethics”

Week 3 (March 24)

Jenny De Luca
The Association of Professional Engineers Scientists and Managers, Australia) (APESMA)

“Professionalism and Engineering Graduates”

The presentation gives students and industrial overview of the mechanisms that regulate employment, outlines graduate salaries, provides tips on finding graduate employment and provides an understanding of employment contracts and professional obligations.

Week 4 (March 31)

Ken Robinson
Ariane 5 Disaster

On 4th June 1996 the maiden flight of Ariane 5 was aborted soon after lift off.

It could be said that the failure was due to a software error in a small piece of code.

At one level of analysis that is perfectly correct, but there was more, much more …

Week 5 (April 7)

Peter Ho
Introduction to Law

Midsession break (April 14) No lecture

Week 6 (April 21)

Stuart Irvine and Ronelle Geldenhuys
Freehills Patent & Trade Mark Attorneys

Intellectual Property and software patents

• Overview of intellectual property and what it means.
• Patents, as the form of intellectual property most useful to software engineers will then be considered in more depth, particularly the requirements for being granted a patent and the protection offered by a patent. Patent issues particular to software engineering/computer programs etc will be discussed here as well.
• A look at the use of patents as a business tool — providing a business perspective of why patents are useful and how to go about maximising their value.

Week 7 (April 28)

David Vaile
Executive Director, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, UNSW

“Legal perspectives on system development — Liability, litigation risk, ’professional’ standards, and ethics”

Week 8 (May 5) No lecture

Week 9 (May 12)

Peter Ho

“Reasonable Foreseeability”

A talk about legal aspects of liabilities, and obligations that go under the banner of tort law.

Week 10 (May 19)

David Vaile
Executive Director, Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre, UNSW

“Censorship, Internet content classification, ISP-level filtering and the interests of young people”

Week 11 (May 26)

Brendan Scott
Principal, Open Source Law

“The Hows, Whys and Wherefores of Open Source -
Open source as a market reaction to regulation of the software industry”