Instructional Resources in Engineering Ethics
Materials for Teaching Ethics in the Engineering
Classroom: University Level
Materials for Instruction in Science and Engineering at
the Secondary Level
Materials for Teaching Ethics in the Engineering
Classroom: University Level
This section provides curriculum ideas and teaching advice
for incorporating ethics into the engineering classroom at
the University level. The goal is to help engineering
professors design courses and curriculum that will enable
students to think of ethics as part of the very process of
their work and to give them the tools for articulating and
resolving these issues.
This section offers both general pedagogical information
(essays, general guides and sample syllabi) and specific
information organized by topics. For each topic, we provide a
background of key issues and concepts to stress, a
bibliography of helpful readings and web resources, advice
for leading discussions on these issues, sample syllabi, and
curriculum ideas/projects. In some cases, information from
professors who have tried these projects will be shared.
Pedagogical advice by
topics
- Important Background
Concepts and Ideas
- This section addresses key concepts and ideas that
underlie the more specific ethical concerns that arise for
engineers. Questions such as "what does it mean to be a
professional?" are addressed and relevant ethical terms are
explained.
- Professional
Responsibilities of the Individual Engineer
- This section addresses pedagogy for such topics as risk
of harm to health and safety, obligations to employers and
clients, responsible conduct of research, and the workplace
environment.
- Engineering Responsibility
for Societal and Environmental
- This section addresses pedagogy for issues surrounding
societal and environmental consequences, the uncertainty of
technology, negligence, and the end problem (the use of
engineering products for evil purposes).
Essays and Guides for
Ethics Education in Engineering and Science
- Ethics and the
Engineer as Expert Witness: A Module for Classroom
Exercises
- The training, perspective, and motives of the engineer
and of the lawyer differ in many respects. In these
classroom exercises we explore these differences as
manifested in an electrical engineer serving as an expert
witness in a US court of law.
- Legality vs.
Ethicality in Software Testing: A Module for Classroom
Exercises
- Joseph H. Wujek, P.E., University of California at
Berkeley. This exercise will involve students by employing
impromptu theatrics in arguing courses of action in a
fictitious and credible scenario. The theatrics technique
in ethics teaching has been used by the author for about
ten years, with generally successful results. In addition
to theatrics the instructor-user of this module has the
option of several assignments which are not mutually
exclusive. These combine engineering thinking, ethics
reasoning, and communications skills. Readily assignable
from the module are: writing a memorandum, holding a class
discussion, negotiating consensus-building, and staging a
debate.
- Using Materials from the
Online Ethics Center for Engineering & Science in the
Engineering Curriculum
- a response to a request from Case's ABET Readiness
Committee for a "Handbook for Dummies" on Engineering
Ethics.
- A Plan for Undergraduate
Education in Practical Ethics
- with sample assignments for engineering students using
teaching materials from the Online Ethics Center.
- Teaching Ethics
Across the Engineering Curriculum
- Michael Davis, Illinois Institute of Technology.
Ethics, as I will show here, fits nicely into every
engineering course, from a first year Introduction to the
Profession to analytic courses like Thermodynamics, from
Calculus to senior design. I shall show this by giving a
few examples of what can be done in engineering's most
analytic courses.
- Teaching
Ethics to Scientists and Engineers: Moral Agents and Moral
Problems
- by Caroline Whitbeck, Case Western Reserve University.
In this essay, Whitbeck, Case outlines an "agent-centered"
approach to learning ethics. The central aim is to prepare
students to act wisely and responsibly when faced with
moral problems. The methods characteristic of this approach
are suitable for integrating material on professional and
research ethics into technical courses, as well as for
free-standing ethics courses. Science and Engineering
Ethics, vol.1:3 (1995), 299-308.
- Integrating
Ethics & Engineering: A Graduate Option in Systems
Engineering, Ethics and Technology Studies
- Michael Gorman, Michael Hertz, Luna Magpili, Mark Mauss
and Matthew Mehalik, University of Virginia. In this paper,
we will describe an engineering graduate option that
attempts to overcome the negative side effects of
specialization and compartmentalization by building an
intimate link between technical and ethical training. As
part of their training, the students in this option produce
case studies that emphasize ethical issues in the design
process.
- A European
Textbook on Engineering Ethics: Second draft for an
epilogue
- Philippe Goujon, Bertrand Hériard Dubreuil, Jean
Marie Lhôte, Michel Veys. The European Ethics Network
has fostered the formation of an editorial team to produce
a textbook in Engineering Ethics. This committee has
selected about thirty specialists from eleven European
Countries to summarize the ethics of their discipline in
readable terms for engineering students. As coordinator of
the editorial committee, Bertrand Hériard Dubreuil
presents the second draft of the epilogue that sketches the
different problems covered and the advances made. The first
draft has been written with Goujon, Lhôte and Veys
from the Centre d'éthique contemporaine de
l'Université catholique de Lille and submitted to
the international editorial committee.
- ABET's
Engineering Criteria 2000 and Engineering Ethics: Where Do
We Go From Here?
- Joseph R. Herkert, North Carolina State University. The
Engineering Criteria 2000 of the Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology (ABET) promises to significantly
alter the landscape of engineering education in the United
States. One potential outcome of Criteria 2000 is increased
attention in the curriculum to the ethical responsibilities
of engineers. In this paper, I discuss the portions of
Criteria 2000 with relevance to engineering ethics
education, some encouraging and discouraging developments
in the field of engineering ethics, and the work that
remains in order to achieve meaningful ethics education for
all engineering students, with particular emphasis on
competing curriculum models.
- Fieldwork and
Cooperative Learning in Professional Ethics
- Michael C. Loui, University of Illinois at
Champaign-Urbana. In two courses on professional ethics,
students collaborate in small groups on a fieldwork
assignment. In this assignment, students visit a site and
interview several professionals to learn about an actual
ethical problem that occurred at that site. The students
analyze the problem and write a group paper. Through this
assignment, students develop skills for working in
multidisciplinary teams, and they deepen their
understanding of collective moral responsibility.
- Expectations
and Experiences of Ethical Issues in Engineering: A Survey
of Stanford Engineering Students and Practicing
Engineers
- Robert E. McGinn, Stanford University. Every other year
I teach E 131, a one-quarter, Stanford School of
Engineering seminar entitled "Ethical Issues in
Engineering." I begin the course straight away by having
the students who attend the first class meeting fill out on
the spot a substantial survey questionnaire on various
aspects of ethical issues in engineering.
- Designing
Engineers: Integration of Engineering "Professional
Responsibility" in the Capstone Design Experience
- Stephen P. Nichols, University of Texas at Austin. ABET
2000 Criteria encourages development of proficiency in
engineering professional responsibility in the
undergraduate curriculum. This paper discusses the use of
industrial sponsored capstone design projects to encourage
active discussion of engineering professional
responsibility that naturally occurs in engineering design.
The paper will also discuss student participation in
designing responses and approaches to issues such as
engineering ethics. The paper will include specific
examples of topics addressed by students and the approaches
developed (by students) in addressing these issues.
- EC2000 and
the Engineering Ethics Dilemma
- Sarah K. A. Pfatteicher, University of
Wisconsin-Madison. The dilemma: How to provide meaningful
ethics instruction to all engineering students without
overburdening faculty, without increasing graduation
requirements, and without removing essential technical
material from the curriculum.
- Service
Learning and Engineering Ethics
- Michael Pritchard, Western Michigan University. In this
paper I will explore a possibility that has received
relatively little attention in engineering ethics
literature -- service-learning. This involves combining
community service and academic study in ways that invite
reflection on what one learns in the process. Given ABET
2000's "major design experience" requirement, the idea of
service-learning in engineering may be especially
promising. But this idea is important for another reason.
Much of the engineering ethics literature dwells on the
negative -- wrongdoing, its prevention, and appropriate
sanctioning of misconduct. These will always be fundamental
concerns. But there is more to engineering ethics than
this. There is the more positive side that focuses on doing
one's work responsibly and well -- whether in the workplace
or in community service.
- Using the Web
for Teaching Engineering Ethics Across the
Curriculum
- Nicholas H. Steneck, University of Michigan. The
problem of the untrained teacher has most commonly been
addressed through instruction. Over the past decade,
workshops, seminars, and training programs, both local and
national, have been organized in an effort to prepare
engineering faculty to teach engineering ethics [2-12].
This paper discusses a different approach to the
"untrained" instructor problem -- the development of a
web-based co-instructor. The web resources described in
this paper have as their primary goal assisting engineering
faculty in the College of Engineering at the University of
Michigan teach and assuming some of the work of teaching
engineering ethics across the curriculum.
- The Concrete
Sumo
- Taft H. Broome, Jr., Howard University. In practice,
engineers often encounter decision-making situations said
to be exigent. Such situations are so complex as to deny
engineers the reflection required to invoke ethical
theories, and so novel as to discourage engineers from
appealing to case studies. What theory would enable
systematic means of deciding morally exigent situations?
Borrowing an African perspective, the rule "Do what a
person of good character would do" is used to transcend
Western ethics. What that person would do in a given
exigent situation is expeditiously revealed via
literary methods of story construction.
- Essays on
Engineering and Business Practices
- Essays specifically targeting whistleblowing, moral
change, how to give a presentation and ethical behavior in
the engineering profession.
- Engineering Ethics in
Engineering Education: a Portuguese Experience
- By Paulo M. S. Tavares de Castro. After a concise
description of the author's institution, this article
describes the education of engineers and the profession of
engineering in Portugal. In particular, Tavares de Castro
considers the role of the Portuguese professional
association of engineers, Ordem dos Engenheiros, and
outlines several of his experiences in addressing ethics
topics in engineering education in Portugal.
- Making
Connections: Engineering Ethics on the World Wide
Web
- By Herkert, NCSU. This paper focuses on the use of the
World Wide Web in courses and course units dealing with
engineering ethics and/or the social implications of
engineering.
- Problems and
Cases: New Directions in Ethics, 1980-1996
- By Whitbeck, Case. In this essay, Whitbeck surveys the
recent practical turn in the study and teaching of research
ethics. Beginning with the recognition that ethics is an
aspect of social life (rather than a body of universally
applicable abstractions), ethicists have increasingly
turned to case study and related approaches in teaching and
writing about ethics. Topics addressed include: assessing
behavior in context; cases, casuistry, and case methods;
dilemmas and decision problems; and problems experienced by
agents. This essay appeared in the Fall 1996 issue of
Professional Ethics.
- Professionalism
in Computing: A Web-based Learning System
- By John A. Lee. This paper describes a highly
interactive Web-based, active-learning system that is a
highly developed work-in-progress to develop a digital
library for a Computer Science course studying social
impact and computer ethics.
- Professional
Ethics and the NCEES
- By R. Larry Greene. An essay by a member of the North
Carolina Bard of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors, a
member body of the National Council of Examiners for
Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), describing the need for
and the present state of ethics education and testing for
professional engineers.
Syllabi and Other
Resources for Designing Courses in Professional Ethics for
Engineers, Computer Scientists, or Scientists
- WRIT 335/ CHEM 301: Professional Ethics for
Scientists Dr.
Linda M. Sweeting
- Towson University. Discussion of the integrity of the
scientific literature and the responsibilities of
scientists to associates and the public. Examination of
principles and of case studies with an emphasis on the
physical sciences.
- MDS 320: Ethics in Engineering
- Herkert, North Caroline State University. Engineering
in American culture and the emerging ethical issues
confronting the profession: corporate responsibility,
personal rights, whistle blowing, conflicts of interest,
professional autonomy, risk assessment, sustainable
development, and the place and purpose of engineering codes
of ethics.
- Engineering Ethics
- Loui, University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. This
site includes readings, syllabus, and assignments as well
as links to other ethics resources on the web.
- Science and Engineering
Ethics
- Whitbeck, Case. This course for upper level
undergraduates and graduate students in engineering and
science makes extensive use of the Online Ethics Center
materials.
- Curriculum Construction
- When designing curriculum, it is helpful to have goals
and objectives in mind. What do you hope your students gain
from this assignment? What outcomes do you hope to achieve?
This website discusses the kinds of objectives instructors
might have in mind for teaching engineering ethics.
- Ethics in
Engineering Curricula
- An article written by Michelle Bothwell and Joseph
McGuire of Oregon State detailing the integration of ethics
into the engineering curricula.
- Ethical Issues
in Civil and Environmental Engineering
- A course syllabus for a course at Stanford University,
taught by Professor Robert E.
McGinn.
- Ethical
Issues in Engineering
- A course syllabus for another course at Stanford. (with
the same professor)
Recommendations of other Web courses or materials on
engineering ethics are most welcome. Cases not already on the
web may be sent for inclusion in the OEC. These will be
subject to editing, if posted. Because the focus of this
center is ethics (including policy questions addressed by
engineers and scientists) we list only courses in engineering
and science ethics. Although courses in the History of
Technology or on Technology and Society are not included, we
welcome historical cases that raise ethical issues for
engineers and scientists.
We invite you to share your curriculum ideas with us and
to submit feedback about any of the projects on this site you
try by using the email icon at the top of the page, or the
online survey link below.