Assignment 2: Research Essay
Start Assignment
Due Jun 7 by 12:00 Points 30 Submitting a file upload
Research Essay Instruc ons
Copyright By PowCoder代写 加微信 powcoder
Due Tuesday 7 June at midday (12pm). The essay is worth 30% of the marks for this unit.
**READ CAREFULLY. We recommend you read the below information several times to make sure you fully understand the assessment requirements**
The aim of this research essay is to improve understanding of key ideas and concepts learnt in this unit. By doing so, this research essay aims to improve your critical thinking, communication skills, referencing skills, and ability to conduct independent research.
This assessment asks you to apply critical ethical thinking to convince your readers of a particular case or viewpoint. There are two essay topic options. Choose only one.
Research essay op on 1: Learning App
A secondary school (South High) is purchasing an innovative AI learning assistant app for final year students to download free to their devices. Some reports suggest that the app, made by a company called Quark, may improve student grades. Being in a very disadvantaged area, many students at South High do not get into university. South High wants to help more of its final year students achieve good marks to get into the university course of their choice. Presently, there is a high student to teacher ratio. Teachers are being stretched and have low morale. South High wants to better compete with schools in wealthier suburbs who can afford the best resources, teachers, and mentors. The app has access to the individual student’s assessments and study notes.
There are two versions of the app available for the school to buy.
App A: The basic version. App A has an easy-to-read dashboard and is designed to:
Keep track of the student’s assessments and grades Monitor student activity on their devices, including studying Organise study notes
Alert students to key deadlines
Help plan study and revision
Give general advice for chosen subjects
Offer motivational support
Give feedback on improving essays and other assessments
The tailored feedback App A gives to each student is to identify areas of learning in which the student is doing poorly (even without teacher feedback). To do this, it uses an interpretable machine learning system that is trained on data from thousands of students and teachers.
App B: The premium version. App B does all that the basic version (App A) does, plus more. It identifies not only areas in which the student is doing poorly, but it also predicts whether the student is likely to pick up extra marks or not with further study in those areas. Furthermore, it is trained to predict areas in which the student is likely to do
especially well with, and without, extra study. These additional features are derived from a deep learning system with thousands of parameters. Reports from other schools who have used these AI tools suggest that App B has improved student grades on standardised tests by nearly 6% compared to App A.
Quark stores encrypted and anonymized student data from App A and claims it does not share that data with other companies. Because the premium App B costs more money to make, Quark reserves the right to use anonymized student data from App B to improve its AI functions. It may also sell anonymised data to interested buyers.
South High’s Board has asked you – the school’s Information Officer with a degree in AI Ethics – to write an ethical evaluation of the two products. The Board demands the report provide a clear recommendation. It insists your evaluation must provide a strong ethical argument that draws on ethical theory and ethical concepts from AI Ethics.
Your task: Write a 1500-word report for the Board of South High recommending to either buy the basic version (App A) or the premium version (App B). You should use evidence and argument to back up your recommendation, as per the Board’s wishes.
Note that you must recommend App A or App B — you cannot recommend that the board buy neither or both. The Board has committed to purchasing App A — they have asked your opinion as to the ethical suitability of App B.
Research essay op on 2: Juvenile offenders
Melbourne’s juvenile justice system is in crisis. Teenage children, arrested on suspicion of committing violent crimes, are being remanded in juvenile detention cells awaiting trial. Normally, they would be rapidly assessed by a judge and either detained or released on bail depending on whether they are low risk or high risk of re-offending. Now, however, a severe backlog of cases and shortage of judges means that all the suspects are in detention for an indefinite period.
The Children’s Court has therefore decided to use AI to process these bail decisions. There are two systems available, with these features:
System A: Owned by a commercial company that is a subsidiary of a social media platform. Research studies seem to show the system to have a false positive rate (incorrectly rates low risk suspects as high risk) of 10% for boys and 20% for girls. Uses a proprietary, interpretable machine learning model that can learn from its mistakes. Pledges to keep data encrypted and off-limits to parent company.
System B: Developed by a government agency. Uses a deep neural network with many parameters. False positive rate suspected to be 30% for girls and 30% for boys. Legally entitled to share data with social security agency. Has no links to commercial providers.
The Children’s Court has asked you – an independent advisor with a degree in AI Ethics – to write an ethical evaluation of the two systems. The Court demands the report provide a clear recommendation for using either System A or System B. It insists your evaluation must provide a strong ethical argument that draws on ethical theory and ethical concepts from AI Ethics.
Your task: Write a 1500-word report for the Children’s Court recommending which system they should buy. You should use evidence and argument to back up your recommendation, as per the Court’s wishes.
Note that you must recommend System A or System B — you cannot recommend that the Children’s court buys neither or both. The Children’s Court has committed to purchasing one of these irrespective of your report outcomes.
Task Details
Select only one of the case studies above.
Your task is to write a 1500-word research essay to defend one technical-ethical perspective (listed in the case study).
We will allow 10% leeway above 1500-word limit without penalty. However, anything >10% over the maximum will incur a penalty in proportion to its magnitude. Being succinct and sticking to word limits is part of the skill of writing.
There is no penalty for any number of words under 1500. (However, very short essays may fail to do well.)
Your essay should draw on selected and key ideas, theory, principles, and concepts from The Ethics of AI: COMP90087. In addition, you are expected to research widely and find your own academic sources, including but not limited to peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, and textbooks.
(Note: Wikipedia is NOT a good source for a research essay!)
Helpful Guidance: please read this sec on carefully!
A good research essay will draw on argument skills you began to develop in the first essay. This includes adopting a clear point of view, writing persuasively and lucidly, and building up a strong critical argument. Think about what you learnt about writing and thinking well and convincingly throughout the subject—in lectures, in tutorials, in Modules, and in the special sessions we had on essay writing.
So what is the difference between a ‘research essay’ and a critical argument (e.g. the first Assignment of this subject)? The ‘research’ part of the assignment says it all — making it clear that arguments about the technology need to be backed up by ideas and evidence available in the literature.
You’ve had experience writing arguments in the prior Assignment; now we extend your academic writing skills to backing up points of view in a more sustained way, and choosing for yourself which way you will argue and which ethical ideas (e.g. theory, principles, concepts) you will use. It does not matter whether the ‘point of view’ you choose is your own personal opinion or not. Rather, what matters is how well you defend that point of view. This requires considering the strengths and weaknesses of that point of view.
To write a good research essay, you need to draw upon references to other academic and scholarly works, and present these in the right manner. To start with, please read the following three guides from our University’s resources for students.
1. This article, “Writing successful essays: Expectations of essays at university level” (https://services.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/471297/Writing_Successful_Essays_Update_
(https://services.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/471297/Writing_Successful_Essays_Update_051112.pdf)
) provides a quick overview of the expectations of the essay, including how to structure the whole thing.
2. A more detailed guide is “Essay Basics” at
(https://library.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1924083/Essay_Basics.pdf
(https://library.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1924083/Essay_Basics.pdf) ).
3. One of the major differences between this research essay and some prior essays you might have written is the need to back up your arguments with multiple academic sources, and reference them appropriately to maintain
Academic Integrity. This resource “Using sources in assessments: voice in academic writing”, is a good one (https://students.unimelb.edu.au/academic-skills/explore-our-resources/referencing/voice-in-academic- writing (https://students.unimelb.edu.au/academic-skills/explore-our-resources/referencing/voice-in-academic- writing) )
Submission requirements
Upload your submission to the Assessment 2: Research Essay submission on Canvas.
Submissions must be in the form of .doc, .docx, or .pdf files, and must conform to the following requirements:
12 point font
Arial font only for Word documents
1.5 line spacing
Use Harvard citation style for references (ten or more)
Clearly defined paragraphs
Figures and images can be used, but each figure counts for 200 words, so use them sparingly (if at all) and use them well!
Please put a word count in the essay (word count does not include references)
For LaTeX users, use the template accessible at https://www.overleaf.com/read/fnjvsyxgqnvv (https://www.overleaf.com/read/fnjvsyxgqnvv) .
Late submission policy
Submissions that are late will be penalised 10% per day (so 3 marks per day) up to 7 days. After 7 days, the essay will not be marked and a score of zero will be recorded.
If you require an extension due to personal or medical reasons, please contact the staff before the due date requesting the extension. Thanks!
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that the correct document is successfully submitted prior to the due time. Failure to upload the correct document on time, even if it is a mistake, will result in the essay receiving late penalties (and not being marked after 7 days).
Criteria [total 30 marks]
Please go to the Rubric for more detail on the criteria.
Support & development of ideas [10 marks]
The ideas in the research essay are well developed and the argument(s) are well supported. The positions taken in the report are clear.
Make sure that the statements and arguments you make are supported; that is, backed up by facts, data, reasons, or beliefs that are convincing and plausible to your audience. Your aim is to convince your reader that you have a strong case, which is adequately supported by other sources of academic literature. An argument is weak if it is not supported by facts and reasons. Think about you feedback on the first essay and the information, discussions, and sessions we had on good ethics writing.
A decent essay of this length will have ten or more references.
Mastery of subject content [10 marks]
The essay demonstrates an understanding of the subject content and the ability to use this understanding to critically analyse a problem and support the argument.
To construct an argument, it is important that you take the time to re-visit the relevant modules and related material in the subject with the assignment in mind. Take notes and highlight important points.
Organisa on [4 marks]
The essay is well organised and follows a clear structure. The reader can readily understand the essay plan.
Structure your essay so that each paragraph presents one key argument. The first sentence of each paragraph should clearly signal the topic of the paragraph. If a paragraph is an argument of a point, begin the paragraph with the claim you want to make, and then use the rest of the paragraph to support that claim (see more below)
Aim to keep each paragraph reasonably short: somewhere between three and five sentences. Aim to keep sentences of a sufficient length: between 15-40 words is a rough guide. A sentence is too long if a reader gets to the end of the sentence and cannot remember the start of the sentence. Read your report out loud and if you need to
take a breath during a sentence, it may be too long. Get someone else to read your essay and see if they understand it all! You could ask someone (if available) who doesn’t know much about the subject to test for the clarity of the essay before you submit.
Clarity [4 marks]
The essay is clear and lucid to the reader. The reader can easily follow the argument.
A reader is always reading your writing from a different perspective from you, with a different background and a different level of understanding of what the essay says. If some parts of your essay are a bit unclear to you, then they will definitely be unclear to the reader. If they are clear to you, this does not mean they will be clear to the reader. It is important that when you re-read your essay to yourself, you think about reading it as if the content is entirely new to you, and highlight and passages that you think could not be clear.
Note that there is a strong relationship between the clarity, organisation, and the support & development of ideas criteria, and demonstrating mastery of the subject content. A clear, well structured argument that is well supported and well developed will make it easier for a reader to understand the ideas, and make it easier to verify that you have developed mastery of the subject content.
Presenta on & grammar [2 marks]
The paper presentation is clean: spelling, grammar, complete sentences, formatted correctly, proper use of academic citation, etc.
While a reader may still understand your essay, sloppy spelling & grammar and an inconsistent format give off an impression that the writer did not pay attention to detail, and can form a negative impression before a reader has even read a single sentence. Also, it is important to note that CORRECT citation practices are required to display academic integrity.
Academic integrity
The University of Melbourne academic integrity policy (https://academichonesty.unimelb.edu.au/policy.html) applies. Students are encouraged to discuss the assignment topics, but all submitted work must represent the individual’s OWN understanding of the topic. The subject staff take academic misconduct and poor citation practices seriously. Plagiarising material from other students or from any other source may result in receiving 0 marks for this assessment or a fail for the subject.
PLEASE NOTE THAT STAFF AND THE UNIVERSITY ARE AWARE OF WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA PURPORTING TO ASSIST STUDENTS COMMIT ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT: DISCIPLINARY ACTION FROM THE UNIVERSITY MAY BE TAKEN.
Please also check Turnitin matches and correct them before re-submitting. Give yourself plenty of time to ensure the essay does not look like it involves plagiarism before you submit. Even if you don’t mean to commit plagiarism, you still need to use correct and honest academic practices.
COMP90087 Assignment 2: Research Essay
Criteria Ratings Pts
Support and development of ideas
The ideas in the report are well developed and the argumentations are well supported. Ten or more academic quality and relevant references are used. The positions taken in the report are clear.
Make sure that the statements and arguments you make are supported; that is, backed up by facts, data, reasons, or beliefs that are likely to be held by your audience. An argument is weak if it is not supported by facts and reasons.
10 pts Outstanding
The ideas are extremely well developed and arguments very well supported with excellent references. The positions taken in the report are very clear.
8 pts Proficient
The ideas are developed and arguments supported. The positions taken in the report are clear, and references are good. However, some improvements may still be possible.
6 pts Developing
The ideas, references, and argument are good, but require some further development; or the position taken is unclear
4 pts Incomplete
The ideas or arguments in the report are incomplete; references are barely adequate; and the stance taken is unclear
2 pts Insufficient
The ideas need further development and the arguments are not well supported; references are not very relevant or of good quality; the positions taken are not clear.
The report does not include sufficient ideas, references, or support and is not clear.
Mastery of Subject Content
The essay demonstrates an understanding of the subject content and the ability to use this understanding to critically analyse a problem and support their argument.
10 pts Outstanding
The essay demonstrates a very strong understanding of the subject content and the critical analysis is excellent.
8 pts Proficient
The essay demonstrates a good understanding of the subject content and the critical analysis supports the argument well, but some improvements are possible.
6 pts Developing
The essay demonstrates sufficient understanding of the main concepts and these are used well, but some concepts are misunderstood or applied incorrectly.
4 pts Incomplete
The essay demonstrates a superficial understanding of the subject content and its application, or the critical analysis is lacking detail and substance.
2 pts Insufficent
The essay demonstrates a lack of understaning of the subject content and the critical analysis is insufficient.
The essay demonstates minimal understanding and there is no critical analysis
Criteria Ratings The essay is
well organised and follows a clear logical structure. The reader can readily understand the essay plan.
4 pts Excellent
The essay is well organised and follows a clear logical structure.
3 pts Good
The structure of the essay or the organisation needs some improvement, but overall, the essay is good.
2 pts Sufficient
The structure is unclear or the essay organisation needs improvement.
1 pts Insufficient
The essay organisation can be improved significantly and the structure is unclear or lacks logic.
0 pts No Marks
The essay is
clear and lucid to the reader. The reader can easily follow the argument.
4 pts Excellent
The essay is clear at all points. It is a pleasure to read, and even shows some flair.
3 pts Good
The essay is clear for the most part, but some improvements can be made.
2 pts Sufficient
The essay can be understood, but the expression of ideas is difficult to follow.
1 pts Insufficient
Parts of the essay are not easily understandable
The essay is not clear and most ideas are not readily understood
Presentation and grammar
The paper presentation is clean: spelling, grammar, complete sentences, formatted correctly, citations accurate, etc.
2 pts Excellent
The presentation is excellent: very few spelling mistakes or grammar errors. Formatting is excellent. Academic citation practice
程序代写 CS代考 加微信: powcoder QQ: 1823890830 Email: powcoder@163.com