A Justice Lens on Fairness and Ethics Courses in Computing Education: LLM-Assisted Multi-Perspective and Thematic Evaluation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a justice-oriented rubric and uses an LLM to evaluate computing courses on fairness and ethics from multiple perspectives, revealing nuanced insights and gaps to improve curriculum design.

Contribution

It presents a novel multi-perspective evaluation method using LLMs and a justice rubric to analyze fairness and ethics syllabi in computing education.

Findings

Multiperspective evaluation reveals nuanced priorities.

LLM identifies thematic trends across courses.

Gaps in curricula can be addressed for better justice and ethics education.

Abstract

Course syllabi set the tone and expectations for courses, shaping the learning experience for both students and instructors. In computing courses, especially those addressing fairness and ethics in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and algorithmic design, it is imperative that we understand how approaches to navigating barriers to fair outcomes are being addressed.These expectations should be inclusive, transparent, and grounded in promoting critical thinking. Syllabus analysis offers a way to evaluate the coverage, depth, practices, and expectations within a course. Manual syllabus evaluation, however, is time-consuming and prone to inconsistency. To address this, we developed a justice-oriented scoring rubric and asked a large language model (LLM) to review syllabi through a multi-perspective role simulation. Using this rubric, we evaluated 24 syllabi from four perspectives: instructor, departmental chair, institutional reviewer, and external evaluator. We also prompted the LLM to identify thematic trends across the courses. Findings show that multiperspective evaluation aids us in noting nuanced, role-specific priorities, leveraging them to fill hidden gaps in curricula design of AI/ML and related computing courses focused on fairness and ethics. These insights offer concrete directions for improving the design and delivery of fairness, ethics, and justice content in such courses.