Conference Session

Sustainability and Humanitarian Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Seamus F. Freyne, Mississippi State University; James P Abulencia, Manhattan College; Powell Draper, Manhattan College

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

ethical issue? The possible responses were “yes,” “probably,” “maybe,” “unlikely,” and “no.”• How relevant is this ethical issue to your career plans? The possible responses were “very much,” “considerably,” “somewhat,” “hardly,” and “not.”• How important is this ethical issue to society? The possible responses were “very much,” “considerably,” “somewhat,” “hardly,” and “not.”The ethical issues can be described as macroethics in the sense that these problems demand thecollective actions of engineers and society, as opposed to microethics that typically involves onlyindividuals. Undeniably, the study of macroethics is significantly different from topics thatmight emerge in a more conventional engineering ethics course and requires new content

Conference Session

Integration of Liberal Education into Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Tom A. Eppes, University of Hartford; Ivana Milanovic, University of Hartford; Frederick Sweitzer, University of Hartford

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics, Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

engaged in a pluralistic,complex world, we have undertaken a project to develop and assess core liberal educationoutcomes. This paper describes the planning and actions thus far to meet these new requirementsat the university and specifically in our engineering programs. We have begun to expandoutcome assessment to include five “intellectual and practical skills,” specifically, critical andcreative thinking, inquiry/analysis, problem-solving, and information literacy. VALUE rubricsare being used as part of the process to ascertain where the best opportunities are to measurestudent achievement within the engineering and technology programs. An assessment frameworkis presented and successful pilot results are discussed.The ChallengeOur regional

Conference Session

Integration of Liberal Education into Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donald Arthur Brown, Penn State University ; Mary Lynn Brannon, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics, Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

. This feedback will be used to improve the module for thethird year. Feedback from faculty was positive. Because the training was a modeled afterthe lecture participants periodically stopped the presenter to give just-in-time comments.It was important to have their perspective because the training module was to ultimatelybe used as a standalone lesson plan. We wanted the faculty to be able to take the lessonplan and adapt it to their courses using it in its entirety or using segments as wereapplicable to their content.Design of the ProgramThe program consists of two modules. Module 1 is the teaching module on the ethics of Page 22.906.4climate change

Conference Session

Sustainability and Humanitarian Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Khanjan Mehta, Penn State University; Duarte B. Morais, North Carolina State University; Yu Zhao, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Mary Lynn Brannon, Pennsylvania State University, University Park; Sarah E. Zappe, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

empower indigenous communities to leverage wildlife and naturalresources for self-determined development in Africa.User-centered design (UCD) grounds the design process in information about the people whowill use the product4. UCD processes focus on users through the planning, design anddevelopment of a product. The showcase focused on attempting to understand the context of useand the specific requirements to develop technology-based solutions that address some of thechallenges faced by the Maasai and Himba tribes in Kenya/Tanzania and Namibia respectively.The explicit goal was to teach students to unravel the sticky information related to the context ofthe problem5 because that step is critical in the design of meaningful, innovative, and

Conference Session

Ethics in different disciplines

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Robert M. Brooks, Temple University; Jyothsna K. S., St.Joseph's College, Bangalore, Department of English; Amithraj Amavasai

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

influence of all thesevariables is random and insignificant as proved by the level of significance of 5%. Since 5%significant level is an acceptable industry standard, the same was adopted in this study. Theauthors plan to extend the strategy of this study to two other courses over the next three years.Performance of the control group was compared with that of the experimental (ethics) group.The average course grades for the control group and the experimental groups were 63 and 74respectively. The experimental group showed a 17.5% improvement over the control group.With a calculated t value of 2.8, the groups are significantly different at an alpha value of 0.05.At the end of semester a survey was conducted to determine how well prepared the

Conference Session

Integration of Liberal Education into Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Vassilios Tzouanas, University of Houston, Downtown; Lea Campbell, University of Houston, Downtown

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics, Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

internal team leadership needed toresolve common behaviors within dysfunctional teams. While no new theoretical results onteamwork are presented, the authors have focused instead on applying their experience asmanagers of teams in major corporations and institutions of higher education to explore what aneffective teaming curriculum might include and to develop related assessment tools. This paperoutlines a strategy for integrating deliberate teaming instruction into senior-level engineeringcapstone or project courses. The curriculum focuses on building team leadership skills andtechniques for addressing challenges such as planning and execution, social loafing, andprocrastination. Models for assessing students‟ teaming skills and for providing

Conference Session

Integration of Liberal Education into Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kacey Beddoes, Virginia Tech; Maura J. Borrego, Virginia Tech; Brent K Jesiek, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics, Liberal Education/Engineering & Society

take other team members’ dissertation research intoaccount when planning their own dissertation research, even if it was on a different part of thesystem. For example, students whose focus was on the media aspects of the system needed toexplain to students from engineering why one kind of sensing mechanism would be preferable,more interesting or innovative than another kind, vis-à-vis the media fields in which theirresearch was situated. Inclusion artifacts were therefore used to suggest a certain design plan orfeature because the kind of sensing mechanism chosen would affect the work of everyone on theteam. In other words, students from the media fields could not make a choice of sensingmechanism without convincing the other team members to

Conference Session

Ethics in different disciplines

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Diana Bairaktarova, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Demetra Evangelou, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

Courses for Significant Learning”.16 Fink’s approach is an integrated course designthat is based on first developing individual components such as identifying situational factorsand learning goals, and then integrating the individual components into an overall structuredcourse, and finally planning of student factors such as grading system and course syllabus. Finkoffers a taxonomy of significant learning that has a hierarchy which is meaningful in this designcontext such that knowledge, application, and integration are defined.Learning objectives in the Engineering Ethics course:  Students should recognize ethical issues  Students should exercise ethical thinking  Students should apply ethical judgmentThe first

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics and Justice

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

move forward that future workshops are planned. 36Conceptual ContributionsThe final approach to engineering and social justice addressed here is the least tangible and yetthe most important from the perspective of research into engineering thinking and practice. It iswhat will be called, for lack of better terminology, “conceptual contributions,” or efforts toreconceptualize how engineering is understood and how it is practiced. In this category ofinterventions, we see engineering and social justice scholars inquiring deeply into theassumptions, structures, values, and practices of engineers. Particular attention is dedicated toidentifying different and problematic facets of the dominant worldview surroundingengineering—a view traditionally

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics Issues Part II

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Martin S. High, Oklahoma State University; Steve Harrist, Oklahoma State University; Scott D. Gelfand, Oklahoma State University, Department of Philosophy

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

Inventory Report, will help the student engage in reflection inorder to determine what sorts of situations the student might find ethically challenging. Thestudent will then develop a personal plan (Adaptive-Strategies Report) addressing what strategiesthey might use in order to increase the likelihood that they will act ethically in challengingsituations (that is, the situations arrived at while developing the Personal Inventory Report). TheAdaptive Strategies Report will help the student: 1) recognize when an ethically challengingsituation; and 2) act ethically in ethically challenging situations (that is, apply the strategiesdeveloped for the Adaptive-Strategies Report). The products of this exercise – PersonalInventory Report and Adaptive

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics and Justice

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

William M. Jordan, Baylor University

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

did site survey work, design, construction and installation of a battery charging station. However, there was a failure to leave behind a completed business structure that resulted in a lack of accountability that would have ensured that the business and operational objectives of the project where continued. This resulted in a nearly complete “business” failure, in part because the technology was not really what they wanted, and that resulted in a lack of societal uptake and therefore a lack of societal acceptance of the battery charging station. Also during this trip, we did not have the vision or plans to try and spread the technology around to other towns in similar situations. While we have

Conference Session

Engineering Ethics Issues Part II

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Rebecca A. Bates, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

issues of control, privacy, computer interaction, security, access, and supreme beings (who is our creator? "If I don't have a user, then who wrote me?") with the backdrop of computer games where battles for power and survival took place. One of the earliest things you'll see is the personification of programs. MPC has gotten 2415 times smarter than when he was first written. Does this make him 2415 times more intelligent? More sentient? More human? At one point, the program expects the user to have a plan. Does he? Page 22.152.6 WarGames (1983) and TRON (1982) were released about the same time. Both films have programs that

Conference Session

Sustainability and Humanitarian Engineering

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Angela R. Bielefeldt, University of Colorado, Boulder

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

Page 22.1359.15 of the semester, but would add to it. It would be good to include that civil engineering is the completion of said tasks through ethical, sustainable, efficient, environmentally conscious, and worldly means. I would attempt now to define Civil Engineering as the collaborative process of designing, planning, and effectively implementing a project that solves a problem in an ethical, cost- effective, and sustainable way. Now, I think about civil engineering as an engineering profession that fulfills projects that benefit society through a variety of sub disciplines that include structures, construction, geotechnical, water resources, transportation and environmental. Each sub discipline then consists of

Conference Session

Ethics in different disciplines

Collection

2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Marilyn A. Dyrud, Oregon Institute of Technology

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

level; whenfull of water for the hot summers, their weight doubled. To accommodate the extra weight, 10-inch concrete floor slabs were added. When area residents complained about excessive noisefrom the units, Lee simply had them pushed to the opposite side of the roof, causing large cracksthat indicated a degree of structural damage.36, 38 Altogether, these alterations to the fifth floorresulted in the building’s dead load being 35% more than the designed load.37, 39The loading problem was exacerbated by other building elements, as revealed by post-disasterinvestigations: the concrete for the flat-slab construction, while weak, was not substandard, but itwas missing about half of the rebar required by building codes; columns ed in design plans