Introduces the fundamental problems, theories, and algorithms of the artificial intelligence field. Includes heuristic search; knowledge representation using predicate calculus; automated deduction and its applications; planning; and machine learning. Additional topics include game playing; uncertain reasoning and expert systems; natural language processing; logic for common-sense reasoning; ontologies; and multiagent systems.

Charts a path through every major aspect of computer graphics with varying degrees of emphasis. Discusses hardware issues: size and speed; lines, polygons, and regions; modeling, or objects and their relations; viewing, or what can be seen (visibility and perspective); rendering, or how it looks (properties of surfaces, light, and color); transformations, or moving, placing, distorting, and animating and interaction, or drawing, selecting, and transforming.

Considers software development as a systematic process involving specification, design, documentation, implementation, testing, and maintenance. Examines software process models; methods for software specification; modularity, abstraction, and software reuse; and issues of software quality. Students, possibly working in groups, design, document, implement, test, and modify software projects.

Covers the fundamentals of software engineering, including software development life cycle models (e.g., waterfall, spiral, agile); requirements analysis; user-centered design; software design principles and patterns; testing (functional testing, structural testing, testing strategies); code refactoring and debugging; software architecture and design; and integration and deployment. Includes a course project in which some of the software engineering methods (from requirements analysis to testing) are applied in a team-based setting.

Offers writing instruction for students in the College of Engineering and the College of Computer and Information Science. Students practice and reflect on writing in professional, public, and academic genres—such as technical reports, progress reports, proposals, instructions, presentations, and technical reviews—relevant to technical professions and individual student goals. In a workshop setting, offers students an opportunity to evaluate a wide variety of sources and develop expertise in audience analysis, critical research, peer review, and revision.

Offers instruction in writing for students considering careers or advanced study in the physical or life sciences. By exploring research literature and reflecting on their own experiences, offers students an opportunity to identify issues of interest in their field and analyze how scientific texts make claims, invoke other scientific literature, offer evidence, and deploy key terms. Through analysis and imitation, exposes students to the challenges of the scientific project, such as the use of quantitative data and visual presentation of evidence. In a workshop setting, offers students an opportunity to evaluate a wide variety of sources and develop expertise in audience analysis, critical research, peer review, and revision.

Offers writing instruction for students interested in interdisciplinary study or who wish to explore multiple disciplines. Students practice and reflect on writing in professional, public, and academic genres relevant to their individual experiences and goals. In a workshop setting, offers students an opportunity to evaluate a wide variety of sources and to develop expertise in audience analysis, critical research, peer review, and revision.

Examines the impact that information technologies (such as the internet, search engines, blogs, wikis, and smartphones); information processing techniques (such as big data analysis, machine learning, crowdsourcing, and cryptography); and information policies (such as privacy norms and speech restrictions) have on what we know and how much we know, as individuals and as a society. The digital world can enhance our ability to acquire knowledge by providing us with fast and cheap access to huge amounts of information. However, it can also undermine our cognitive abilities and provide us with inaccurate or misleading information. Studies normative frameworks from epistemology and ethics (such as epistemic value theory, the extended mind hypothesis, and moral rights) to evaluate these technologies and policies.

Describes the legal and ethical issues associated with collection, use, disclosure, and protection of digital information. Emphasizes legal infrastructure relating to privacy, data ethics, data security, hacking, automation, and intellectual property. Articulates the basic set of rules and rights that are relevant to data practices and protection, evaluates how these rules apply in context, and critically analyzes their efficacy and social impact.

Describes the legal and ethical issues associated with information security including access, use, and dissemination. Emphasizes legal infrastructure relating to information assurance, such as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and Telecommunications Decency Act, and emerging technologies for management of digital rights. Examines the role of information security in various domains such as healthcare, scientific research, and personal communications such as email. Examines criminal activities such as computer fraud and abuse, desktop forgery, embezzlement, child pornography, computer trespass, and computer piracy.

Examines the social impact of diverse forms of technological development and application that will have sweeping effects on the everyday lives of individuals, groups, governments, and societies in the twenty-first century. The global, transforming effects of technology as it affects communities of color in the United States and internationally are explored in three main areas: the computer, DNA, and quantum revolutions. Topics include the digital divide, minority media ownership, human cloning, the “dot.com” phenomenon, race and cultural representations in cyberspace, and biopiracy. Lectures, class discussions, fieldwork, and interaction with leaders in these various fields are integral elements of the course.

Focuses on the use of digital methods to analyze and archive literary texts, emphasizing issues of diversity and inclusion. Covers three main areas: text encoding, textual analysis, and archive construction. Considers literary texts and corpora, including works by well-known authors such as Shakespeare, together with collections by marginalized writers, including slave narratives and writings by early modern women. Offers students an opportunity to explore what counts as literature and how computers, databases, and analytical tools give substance to concepts of aesthetic, cultural, and intellectual value as inflected by race and gender.

Offers an interdisciplinary survey of the global history of science and technology. Explores how scientific and technical knowledge, processes, and innovations developed and circulated. Examines how science and technology both shaped and responded to society, culture, ethics, and thought.

Uses Boston as a case study for integrating computational methods with the social sciences and humanities to provide new insights into major cultural, historical, and societal questions as they relate to and extend beyond the city of Boston. Through lectures, discussions, and labs, the course examines a variety of data sets that measure geographic, historical, literary, political, civic, and institutional landscapes. Offers students an opportunity to combine analytical tools, such as geospatial mapping, data visualization, and network science, with readings, hands-on class activities, and museum or site visits, enabling a comprehensive view of complex cultural and social phenomena.

Studies philosophy of technology, as well as ethics and modern technology. Considers the relationship between technology and humanity, the social dimensions of technology, and ethical issues raised by emerging technologies. Discusses emerging technologies such as biotechnology, information technology, nanotechnology, and virtual reality.

Examines the impact that information technologies (such as the internet, search engines, blogs, wikis, and smartphones); information processing techniques (such as big data analysis, machine learning, crowdsourcing, and cryptography); and information policies (such as privacy norms and speech restrictions) have on what we know and how much we know, as individuals and as a society. The digital world can enhance our ability to acquire knowledge by providing us with fast and cheap access to huge amounts of information. However, it can also undermine our cognitive abilities and provide us with inaccurate or misleading information. Studies normative frameworks from epistemology and ethics (such as epistemic value theory, the extended mind hypothesis, and moral rights) to evaluate these technologies and policies.

Analyzes the transformation of work since the advent of industrial capitalism. Emphasizes the organization and experience of work since World War II and the contemporary shifts underway in the wake of deindustrialization, the rise of service work, the emergence of the internet, the platform revolution, and the globalization of business organizations. Topics include the shifting nature of authority relations at work; changing forms of labor control; types of workplace culture in traditional and high-tech settings; and efforts to identify and reduce bias against women, minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community. Addresses dilemmas arising from the introduction of advanced technologies.

Focuses on the connections between the development of modern nation-states and the control of nature. Explores the role human societies play in such events as climate change, tsunamis, and droughts. Asks how industrialization and the process of science and technology development are related to our transforming environmental conditions, as well as how the social sciences, the sciences, and engineering are transforming to address these issues. Draws on social theory, environmental history, anthropology/sociology, art/design, and open-source technologies to investigate theoretically and methodologically the sources, experiences of, and solutions for environmental health questions.

Focuses on the social and political context of technological change and development. Through readings, course assignments, and class discussions, offers students an opportunity to learn to analyze the ways that the internet, artificial intelligence, and other technological advances have required a reworking of every human institution—both to facilitate the development of these technologies and in response to their adoption.