Social science computing curricula (Panel Session)

Abstract

Instruction about computers for social scientists centrally involves how to prepare social scientists to behave differently in some manner than they would without instruction. The differences of interest can be helpfully divided into those bearing on the conduct of social science inquiry and those bearing on the social science contribution toward realizing the social benefits and minimizing the social costs of computers. We wish to act so that the intellectual capacity of the social scientists we train will be better than that of their predecessors and the net social value of computers will exceed that of other new and complex technologies. Given these purposes, it seems useful to begin with the performances we want our students to engage in and work backward to the instruction those performances require. The points noted below seem to me to be important, not exhaustive.