THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

Responsibility for Bugs and Errors

Author(s): Caroline Whitbeck

Background and Module Content

Method and Scenarios

Readings (recommended for discussion of scenarios)

Objectives

Bibliography (for further reading)

Additional Web Resources

Background and Module Content

• Ethical norms and practices governing responsible acknowledgment of errors, mistakes, and "bugs."
• Field-dependent practices governing the dissemination of results and corrections.
• Resources for raising concerns about possible misconduct.
• Resources for resolving disputes about responsibility within a research group.

Method and Scenarios

• Distribution of scenarios to the students and faculty.
  • When May a Student Publish?
  • Is There an Error?
  • The Missing Step
  • The Disappearing Bottles
  • Surprise Authorship
  • Doubts About Published Results
  • When Funding Runs Low
  • Building on a Premature Claim
  • Safety in a Research Laboratory
• Faculty panel discussion of mistakes and errors that are made in their specialties, the criticality of those errors, and appropriate ways of correcting or notifying others once such errors are discovered--using the scenarios above and others that students or faculty wish to add.

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Readings (recommended for discussion of scenarios)

under construction 9/29/03

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Objectives

• Increased ability to identify moral ambiguities in a problem situation.
• Increased ability to identify and negotiate responsibilities.

Bibliography (for further reading)

under construction 3/13/03

Additional Web Resources

The Killer Robot Case

by Richard G. Epstein. In this hypothetical scenario, a programmer is blamed for the death of an operator of a robot that he designed. The scenario features tongue-in-cheek humor and unexpected twists in plot.

Internet Privacy

With the growth of computer technology in the past twenty years, a serious new issue faces the engineer and scientist, as well as anyone in a computer related field. That issue is Privacy over networks and the Internet.

An Investigation of the Therac-25 Accidents

by Nancy G. Leveson and Clark S. Turner

ComputingCases.org

ComputingCases.org contains case materials and many other useful links about Ethics in Computing. The website also includes background information about socio-technical systems, ideas about teaching with cases, and example exercises.

• Return to Group Mentoring in Responsible Research Conduct

• Responsibilities of Editors and Reviewers

• The Supervisor-Trainee Relationship

National Academy of Engineering

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