Below is a list of items with policy relevance from the December issue of Communications of the ACM. As always, much of the material in CACM is premium content, and free content one month may slip behind a pay wall the next. You need to be a member of ACM or a subscriber to CACM to access premium content online.
CSTA Letter
It is a Pivotal Time for K-12 Computer Science by Chris Stephenson
Computer Science Teachers Association Executive Director Stephenson outlines the reasons why changes in undergraduate computer science enrollments do not mean it is time for the computing community to stop its work in improving the state of K-12 computer science education.
CACM Online
Crowdsourcing and the Question of Expertise by David Roman
Roman notes that crowdsourcing, which is cropping up in some of the Obama Administration’s efforts to develop policy, lacks a level of discernment between crowd wisdom and mob rule.
Society
Making Automation Work by Samuel Greengard
Starting from the recent fatal Metro crash in Washington, D.C., the author discusses the challenges in managing the human-machine interface in automated systems.
Viewpoints: Broadening Participation
Opening Remarks by Richard Ladner
This first column in a series on broadening participation in computing matters to the field and to society.
Practice
A Threat Analysis of RFID Passports by Alan Ramos, Weina Scott, William Scott, Doug Lloyd, Katherine O’Leary, and Jim Waldo
The article discusses the vulnerability of passports with RFID chips to data capture, and considers a cost-benefit analysis of targeting these passports for identity theft.