Essays on Ethics Education in Engineering and Science

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, Dr. Whitbeck 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 Lhúte, 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 Philippe Goujon, Jean Marie Lhúte and Michel Veys from the Centre d'Èthique 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.

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 Joseph R. Herkert. 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 Caroline Whitbeck. 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.

An Essay on International Standards of Ethics

A discussion by Vivian Weil of the concept of common morality and the challenges and complexities of establishing international standards of`engineering ethics

Professional Ethics and the NCEES

An essay by R. Larry Greene, a member of the North Carolina Board 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.