Conference Session

Moral Development, Engineering Pedagogy and Ethics Instruction

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College; Ida Ngambeki, Smith College; Lionel Claris, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

students and professionals ought tobe concerned with ethics, and highlights its importance and relevance in core classes.Shortcomings include: a sense of disjointedness when ethics is added rather than fully integratedinto a course; the perceived challenge of connecting certain ethics topics with certain engineeringsubjects; and a lack of deep reflection or critical thinking on the part of students when notsufficiently supported.In seeking to address the drawbacks of the ethics across the curriculum approach at ourinstitution, we implemented an ethics weblog (blog) in the core engineering thermodynamicscourse. Previously, ethics had been taught in this course through the use of case analyses thatdealt nominally with thermodynamics topics. In order

Conference Session

Moral Development, Engineering Pedagogy and Ethics Instruction

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Christan Whysong, Virginia Tech; Jenny Lo, Virginia Tech; Kumar Mallikarjunan, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

three main moral theories studentsstudied were utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and rights ethics.Students also reflected on ethics as part of an electronic portfolio assignment. This electronicportfolio is owned by the student while he/she is enrolled at this university. BSE intends to useelectronic portfolios to encourage students to reflect on and maintain a record of theireducational experiences. Lastly, students worked in teams to perform research and present ethicsrelated material within the context of recent concerns and events related to natural disasters suchas hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes; this presentation assignment is presented in acompanion paper. 3 This basic ethics instruction creates a foundation for ethics instruction

Conference Session

Ethics Integration in the Engineering Curriculum

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Jenny Lo, Virginia Tech; Vinod Lohani, Virginia Tech; Jennifer Mullin, Virginia Tech

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

number of EngE faculty, including Lo and Lohani, have been collaboratingwith faculty members in other engineering departments and the school of education to undertakereformulation of the GE program using a spiral curriculum approach1. This effort is part of adepartment-level reform (DLR) project from the NSF. One of the spiraling themes relates to“ethics.” The intended approach is to cover general ethics related topics reflecting contemporaryengineering issues in the GE program and include discipline specific “ethics” issues in upperlevel courses. Faculty members from the Biological Systems Engineering (BSE) department areparticipating in this DLR project and are working with EngE faculty to reformulate thecurriculum of the bioprocess option

Conference Session

New Horizons in Academic Integrity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Trevor Harding, Kettering University; Cynthia Finelli, University of Michigan; Donald Carpenter, Lawrence Technological University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

reported the pressures “cheating works”, “the materialwas too hard” and “grade pressure” reported the highest average temptation index. Thesepressure themes might be reflective of students who are more “grade-oriented” than their peers,seeing grades as the ultimate purpose of college. This contrasts with those pressures with loweraverage temptation indices, such as “lack of motivation”, “it’s not cheating” and “others neededmy help”, which are not as easily linked to a grade-oriented disposition. Table 3: Temptation index for the college setting as a function of the reported pressures and hesitations to cheat. Pressure to Cheat Temptations Hesitation to Cheat

Conference Session

New Horizons in Academic Integrity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Adly Fam, University at Buffalo, SUNY; Indranil Sarkar, University at Buffalo, SUNY; Khaled Almuhareb, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

then would reflect the probability of getting caught after cheatingincidents in quizzes only in this particular class. On the other hand, the incidents could becounted based on cheating activities in all classes that a particular student is taking and in all Page 11.153.4types of activities such as homeworks, quizzes etc. The counting of the incidents could also besomewhere in between the above extremes.Let = probability of getting caught at least once in n cheating incidents. denotes the probability of being caught in any given incident. This probability depends onthe degree of surveillance in the given environment. Henceforth

Conference Session

Moral Development, Engineering Pedagogy and Ethics Instruction

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Yilmaz Hatipkarasulu, Texas A&M University; James H. Gill, Jr., Jr., Louisiana State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

systematic approach to determine and select values for individual conduct andapplication of these values in human interrelationships. These basic principles and selection ofvalues are at the center of our personal lives and their reflections drive the relationshipsbetween parties in professional and business context.Codes of ethics/professional conduct are commonly used as guidelines in professionalrelationships that are generally defined by institutions, professional organizations or withinindividual companies or firms. Although they address specific issues and circumstancesrelated to particular organizations or professions, there are commonalities among differentcodes. For example, codes of ethics for American Institute of Architects1, American

Conference Session

Moral Development, Engineering Pedagogy and Ethics Instruction

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kevin Schmaltz, Western Kentucky University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

assessment rubrics. The rubric for the program’sethics outcome is shown in Table 2. The rubric is used for all years of student evaluation,allowing the comparison of varied levels of professional competence as students advance Page 11.563.7through the curriculum. The expected Total Score indicated at the bottom of the rubric changes,reflecting the increasing expectation for student performance as they move through the elementsof the integrated Professional Component.The Table 2 Rubric is applied to a representative sample of student work in the freshman,sophomore, junior and senior design classes, and the results of this

Conference Session

New Horizons in Academic Integrity

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Murali Krishnamurthi, Northern Illinois University; Jason Rhode, Northern Illinois University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

the results were farbetter compared to the fall 2005 data set, thus confirming the positive impact of the module. Butit should be pointed out that no changes were made to the content, quiz questions or the pre andpost-test questions, and the only changes were related to module navigation and instructions. Theresults of the evaluation conducted in spring 2006 will also be presented at the conference.ConclusionsAn online module has been designed, developed and implemented successfully for promotingacademic integrity. The implemented module not only covers academic integrity issues, but alsoengages students to reflect on the issues through quizzes, games, FAQs and case scenarios. Themodule includes features for students to print a Certificate of

Conference Session

Engineering Practice for a Moral World

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gene Moriarty, San Jose State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

good into the world. Of course, what wemean by “good” is a wide open question worthy of discussion and reflection. The IEEE Code ofEngineering Ethics, as well as many similar codes, gives us an indication of what direction weought to go. They say, among other things, that to serve the good we ought to protect the health,safety, and welfare of the general public. That is, we should seek to maximize health, safety, andwelfare. Mathematically we can indicate this by letting J1 = health, J2 = safety, and J3 = welfare.Then we seek max J1, max J2, and max J3.In the theory of optimal control, we seek to maximize value functions or, more commonly, tominimize cost functions. But these reduce to the same thing since value functions are usually

Conference Session

Engineering Practice for a Moral World

Collection

2006 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Rossler, Oklahoma State University; Martin High, Oklahoma State University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

Texas there are sevenunregistered ones.10 Unregistered engineers are presumably not only less likely to know orunderstand their ethical obligations as engineers, but are less likely to see them as obligationsthan are registered engineers.11The legal profession has developed over the years a wealth of doctrines, curricula, cases, andrules pertaining to attorneys’ ethical conduct. Ethical conduct, however, is not necessarily moralconduct. Ethics involves principles of conduct that reflect a profession’s choices amongpotentially conflicting moral or value considerations. Certain ethical conduct on the part oflawyers might strike some outside the profession as immoral. The same could be said of otherprofessions’ conduct, including engineering. A