Information Studies Department

Computer Science Department

University at Albany

David Goodall
Adjunct Instructor

David Goodall is an Adjunct Instructor at the University at Albany, SUNY.

He has been a Lecturer in the Computer Science Department where he has taught the undergraduate course The Social Impact of Computing (CSI 300z) since 1991.

He also teaches occasional courses in the Department of Information Studies: including The Administration of Information Agencies (IST 614) and a Senior Seminar (IST 499).

His research interests include the impact of computing and networks on privacy, the role of government in ensuring access to computing resources and advancing the computing industry, and the evolving intersection of computing and human behavior and identity. In 1987, he taught a graduate-level class in the University at Albany History Department on the history of computing.

He received his PhD in American History from the University at Albany in 1984. He concentrated on US Colonial History. His dissertation tracked the migration of New Englanders into contested land in New York and explored the role politics, religion, and culture played in integrating these "squatters" into New York society. These Yankee communities made significant contributions to Revolutionary era politics and the emergence of the Shaker religious movement. His dissertation is entitled New Light on the Border: New England Squatter Settlements in New York during the American Revolution.

Until recently, he was the Director of Fiscal Management and Human Resources at the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. Before that, he worked for sixteen years in the Office of Information Technology, starting his career in 1977 as a Computer Systems Analyst. In time, he became a Manager of Data Processing and, later, was the Assistant Director of Data Processing. He was also the Coordinator of the Reinventing DMV program that is credited with improving DMV's customer services and public reputation.

How does a career as a civil servant at DMV help one become knowledgeable about the social impact of computing? In a strictly technical sense, since DMV record systems are, by definition, large, public, and accessed by many public and private sector organizations, DMV records and rules of access necessarily reflect the need to secure a balance between data subjects' expectations for privacy versus the public safety and commercial value of DMV records. With its reliance on computers to manage programs and records, agencies like DMV become catalysts for both oranizational change and for social anxiety.

Ultimately, in a much larger sense, the subject material for this class is largely the content of our times, rewarding curiosity and inquiry about our times as much as requiring formal study or organizational background.

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Last updated: 2/1/08