WGU D773: Technology and Ethics: Emerging Trends and Society

Where D773 Fits, and Why It Is Not a Throwaway Course

WGU D773, Technology and Ethics: Emerging Trends and Society, is built around one uncomfortable question: when a technology arrives faster than the laws and norms that would govern it, how do you decide what the right thing to do is? WGU's published description explains that the course gives you a foundational introduction to ethical frameworks and then applies them to current trends — artificial intelligence, social media, and other forms of digital media — while examining the impact of technology on your understanding of self and your role in interacting with others in a globalized society. It appears in more than one WGU degree plan, including the BS in Information Technology.

Direct answer: D773 is assessed by written performance tasks, not by a proctored multiple-choice exam, so passing means submitting work that satisfies every line of the rubric rather than recalling facts under a timer. Learn a small set of ethical frameworks well enough to apply them to an unfamiliar scenario in your own words, then answer each rubric prompt separately and explicitly, citing your sources. If an evaluator has to hunt for a requirement, that is the one that comes back.

Students often assume a course like this is a formality because there is nothing to memorize, and that assumption is exactly what produces a returned submission. The grading is not about whether your opinion is admirable; it is about whether you can name a framework, apply it to a specific fact pattern, and explain the trade-off you accept. Two students can reach opposite conclusions and both pass, provided each reasons transparently. A student who writes three eloquent paragraphs of personal feeling and never names a framework will not.

The practical value is real, too. Heading into IT, you will make calls about data retention, facial recognition, and model deployment long before anyone hands you a policy document, and this is where you build the vocabulary to defend them. It pairs naturally with D333 Ethics in Technology and gives useful context for the privacy topics in D430 Fundamentals of Information Security.

What the D773 Performance Assessment Covers

Based on WGU's official course description and stated learning outcomes, your written work is expected to demonstrate the following:

• Ethical decision-making frameworks applied to technology. Describe the frameworks the course introduces — rule- and duty-based reasoning, consequence-based reasoning, and character- or virtue-based reasoning among them — and say what each asks you to prioritize.
• Applying ethical concepts to emerging technology in a societal context. Given a realistic scenario, identify the dilemma, name the stakeholders, apply a framework, and defend a course of action.
• Privacy ethics and identity in relation to emerging technologies. Data collection, consent, surveillance, and what it means for your identity to be represented and inferred by systems you did not choose.
• Artificial intelligence and automated decision-making. Bias, transparency, and who answers for a harm a system causes.
• Social media and digital media. Platform influence, the durability of a digital footprint, and the tension between free expression and harm.
• Technology, the self, and global society. How connected technologies change relationships, work, and cross-border obligations.

Because task prompts change between course revisions, work from the rubric inside your own course of study rather than anything circulating online. The list above is the map; your rubric is the specification.

How Hard D773 Is and How Much Time to Budget

Structurally, this is one of the lighter courses you will meet in a technology degree plan. There is no proctored testing appointment to schedule, no math, and no lab environment to configure, and WGU frames the ethical frameworks as a foundational introduction rather than assuming you arrive with philosophy coursework behind you. If your writing is organized and you can follow a rubric line by line, it is very manageable — which is why it lands as approachable rather than hard.

The catch is that "easy" and "fast" are not the same thing. Submissions go through an evaluation queue, and a returned task means waiting for another round — so a student who drafts carelessly and collects two revisions can spend longer on D773 than one who spent an extra evening on the first draft and passed it outright.

A sensible budget: a few focused sessions to read the material and take framework notes, one working session per task to outline and draft, and a separate session on a different day to revise against the rubric with fresh eyes. Add buffer for evaluation turnaround so a revision does not collide with the end of your term. If you are accelerating, D773 slots nicely into the gaps between heavier technical courses — just do not start it the week your term closes.

A Study Plan Built for a Writing-Assessed Course

Passive rereading is the least efficient thing you can do here, because you are not tested on recognition. Use methods that force production:

Build a framework comparison sheet first. One row per framework, four columns: what it asks you to maximize or respect, the question it makes you ask about a scenario, its blind spot, and a one-line example. Write it from memory, then check it against the course material. That correction step is where the learning happens.

Practice with retrieval on scenarios you invent. Pull one technology story from the news each day for a week and run it through the same five-minute routine from memory: dilemma, stakeholders, two frameworks, decision, trade-off you accept. Compare against your notes afterward. Spacing the attempts across days is what makes the frameworks stick when a task hands you something unfamiliar, and by the end you have a reusable analytical template.

Reverse-outline from the rubric. Before you write a word of prose, copy each rubric requirement into your document as its own heading and draft underneath it. This single habit prevents the most common cause of returned work.

Get your citations right the first time. Ethics writing leans on sources, and citation formatting is a common reason otherwise solid work comes back. Use the library and writing center help listed under WGU student resources before you submit, not after a return.

Mistakes That Get D773 Tasks Sent Back

• Opinion without framework. "Wrong because it violates privacy" is a conclusion, not an analysis. Name the framework and show the reasoning that got you there.
• Naming a framework but not applying it. Defining utilitarianism and then never using it on the scenario earns nothing. The application is the graded part.
• Answering the scenario you wish you had. Writing about AI bias in general when the task asked about one organization's specific decision. Stay inside the fact pattern you were given.
• Burying requirements in flowing prose. If the rubric lists four things, an evaluator needs to find four things. Blended paragraphs make requirements invisible.
• Ignoring stakeholders who are not the protagonist. Employees, customers, bystanders, and future users all have interests, and naming them is usually part of what "analyze" means here.
• Using someone else's submitted task as a template. It is an academic integrity violation with serious consequences, submissions are checked for originality, and recycled files are usually outdated against the current rubric.
• Submitting the same day you draft. A one-day gap between writing and submitting catches more errors than any amount of rereading in the same sitting.

D773 Readiness Checklist

• Can you describe each ethical framework in the course in two sentences, from memory, without looking?
• Can you take an unfamiliar technology scenario and name the dilemma, the stakeholders, and two competing interests within five minutes?
• Can you apply two different frameworks to the same scenario and explain honestly why they point in different directions?
• Can you explain what privacy means beyond secrecy — consent, control, and inference from data you never handed over?
• Can you articulate a concrete accountability problem in AI decision-making using a specific example rather than a generality?
• Can you point to every rubric requirement in your draft and show the sentence that satisfies it?
• Are all of your sources cited in text and matched in your reference list, in the format your task specifies?

D773 FAQ

Is WGU D773 an objective assessment or a performance assessment?

D773 is assessed through written performance tasks rather than a proctored objective exam. That means no testing appointment and no time limit, but also no partial credit for a near miss — your submission either meets each rubric requirement or comes back for revision. Confirm the current structure in your own course of study, since WGU updates courses periodically.

How hard is D773 compared with other technology courses?

Most students find it structurally easier than programming, networking, or math-heavy courses, because nothing has to be recalled under pressure. The difficulty is in precision: writing that answers a rubric exactly rather than writing that merely sounds thoughtful.

Do I need a philosophy background to pass?

No. WGU describes the course as offering a foundational introduction to ethical frameworks, so the concepts are built up rather than assumed. What you need is the discipline to use those frameworks as tools rather than as decorative vocabulary.

What happens if my task is returned?

A return is not a failure — it is feedback with a specific list of what to fix. Read the evaluator comments carefully, address each point in the document itself, and resubmit. Plenty of students clear a task on the second attempt because the feedback names the gap exactly.

Can I use AI tools to help with my D773 tasks?

Start with your task instructions. A technology-ethics task may deliberately ask you to interact with an AI tool and analyze what it produced — in that case using it is the assignment, documented as directed. Beyond what the instructions call for, follow WGU's academic authenticity policy: submitted work is checked for originality, and the analysis you are graded on has to be yours.

What should I study first if I only have one evening?

The ethical frameworks. Everything else — privacy, AI, social media — is an application surface for them. Apply the frameworks fluently and the scenario content becomes far easier to handle.

Keep Going

D773 rewards a small amount of structured preparation far more than long hours. Build the framework sheet, practice on real news stories, outline straight from the rubric, and let a draft rest overnight before you submit. To plan the rest of your term, browse the School of Technology guides or the full WGU course guide index. If security is next on your degree plan, D385 Software Security and Testing picks up several of the same accountability questions from an engineering angle.

This guide is an independent study resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced by Western Governors University. Always defer to your official course of study, task instructions, and rubric.