DOI: 10.5176/2301-3761_CCECP18.26
Authors: John Tharakan
Abstract:
Engineering programs are currently required by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) to demonstrate that one of the educational outcomes achieved by the Program’s students’ is an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. This outcome (outcome f) focussed on ethics has been articulated to include performance indicators (PI’s) that assess students demonstrated understanding of (i) intellectual property types and their importance; (ii) the consequences of poor work quality; (iii) the potential consequences of unethical behavior; and (iv) what to do when confronted with unethical activities. In this paper, we report on the development of an Ethics in Engineering module that is offered to both the freshman and the seniors in our Undergraduate program. The ethics module occupies two 80- minute lecture periods out of 30 total periods in the courses, and students are required to conduct an ethical assessment of an engineering situation. In the assignment at the freshman level, students worked in teams of three to conduct an “ethical assessment” of three given engineering situations and write a three-page report on this assessment demonstrating achievement of the outcome. At the senior level, students worked in teams and identifed a real world engineering situation that posed a dilemma and developed a four-page paper assessing the ethicality of the engineering incident or situation, and demonstrating their achievement of the outcome.
Keywords:Ethics, Engineering ethics, ABET, educational outcomes, professional responsibility
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