Making Connections: Engineering Ethics on the World Wide Web
Author(s):
Joseph R. Herkert
Copyright 1997 Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers. Reprinted, with permission, from IEEE Transactions
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Abstract
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. Course
materials and other resources for use by students and faculty
are discussed and a new website, the Web Clearinghouse for Engineering and
Computing Ethics, is introduced. Course materials
and resources found on the Web include: ethics centers that
focus on engineering ethics and/or other fields of
professional ethics; case studies and other instructional
materials; course syllabi; codes of engineering ethics;
ethics pages of professional societies; papers, articles and
reports with relevance to engineering and computer ethics;
online ethics journals and newsletters; and primary source
archives. The Web lends itself for use as a place to post a
"living" course syllabus, with hypertext links to on- and
off-site material containing course information and
assignments as well as information on content and pedagogical
techniques of interest to faculty who are developing and
teaching courses in engineering and computing ethics. By
illustrating in real-time the interconnectedness of
information from engineering, the humanities and the social
sciences, the Web serves as a tangible metaphor for the
interdisciplinary approach necessary for a complete
examination of ethics in engineering.
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I. Introduction
Though only a few years old, the World Wide Web (WWW) is a
rich and rapidly growing resource of information on
engineering ethics. The Web provides a convenient gateway to
on-line instructional materials for faculty preparing
engineering ethics courses or course modules, resources for
use by students and practicing engineers, and archival
information for research on engineering ethics by scholars
and representatives of engineering societies. This paper
focuses on the use of the World Wide Web in engineering
education, with particular relevance to courses and course
units on engineering ethics and/or the social implications of
engineering.
As an important complement to this paper, the websites
discussed, as well as other on-line resources relevant to
engineering and computing ethics, are indexed on a new web
page, the Web Clearinghouse for Engineering and
Computing Ethics, which is sponsored by the Division of Multidisciplinary Studies, North Carolina State
University 1.
The purpose of this site, which contains no original
material, is to provide a comprehensive, user-friendly index
of materials on the Web relating to engineering and computing
ethics. The material on the site is indexed (see Appendix)
according to a number of categories including: ethics
centers; professional societies; codes of ethics;
conferences; books and reports; journals and newsletters;
mailing lists and newsgroups; and case studies. The site will
be periodically expanded and updated by the author with the
goal of maintaining a reputable online clearinghouse of
worthwhile information on engineering and computing
ethics.
This paper first presents an overview of course materials
and resources on engineering ethics that are available on the
World Wide Web, then considers various uses of the Web for an
on-line course syllabus. The paper concludes with a
discussion of the Web as a metaphor for interdisciplinary
fields such as engineering ethics.
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II. Course Materials and Resources
Course materials and resources found on the Web include:
ethics centers that focus on engineering ethics and/or other
fields of professional ethics; case studies and other
instructional materials; course syllabi; codes of engineering
ethics; ethics pages of professional societies; papers,
articles and reports with relevance to engineering and
computer ethics; and online ethics journals and newsletters.
There is also a wealth of primary source material relating to
engineering ethics as well as societal aspects of
technology.
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III. Ethics Centers
A number of established professional and professional
ethics centers have created comprehensive home pages on the
WWW, and other centers have been created specifically to take
advantage of the Web's unique capabilities for information
dissemination. These centers are usually staffed by experts
in the field of professional and professional ethics
(including philosophers and practitioners in the various
professions) and thus provide a "gatekeeper" function with
regard to the quality of the content contained on the
websites.
The most comprehensive engineering ethics center is The Online
Ethics Center for Engineering and Science 2. The Center,
formerly located at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, moved to Case Western Reserve University in the
summer of 1997. This site, which was created with support
from the National Science Foundation (NSF), contains an
abundance of diverse material, original and imported, on such
topics as research ethics, codes of ethics, case studies in
engineering ethics, and corporate ethics. Though not formally
designated as an ethics center, another site of considerable
value is the Engineering Ethics site at Texas
A&M University 3, which includes introductory essays on engineering
ethics and engineering ethics case studies developed with
funding from the NSF. Other ethics centers, such as the
Research Center on Computing and Society
at Southern Connecticut State University 4, focus on the ethics
and social implications of computing. Finally, there are a
number of ethics centers on the Web which focus more
generally on the field of professional and professional
ethics, including, for example, the Institute for Business and Professional
Ethics at DePaul University 5.
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IV. Professional Societies and Codes of
Ethics
Codes of ethics promulgated by professional engineering
societies are important resources in developing an
understanding of the professional responsibilities of
engineers 6. Codes
can be found at various places on the Web, including the
ethics centers previously discussed. The Online Ethics
Center for Engineering and Science 32 , for example, contains a
collection of about a dozen codes of ethics and conduct. The
Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions
at the Illinois Institute of Technology 7 recently received funding from the
NSF to digitize and make available on-line its entire library
of professional ethics codes consisting of more than 850
documents, including earlier versions of existing codes.
Another on-line source of codes is the growing number of
websites of the professional societies, which also provide
information to the society's members and other interested
parties regarding organizational support and procedures
relating to ethical concerns. Indeed many societies, such as
the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) 8 and the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 9 have ethics pages located within
their websites. Other professional organizations, which have
evolved specifically out of an interest in the social and
ethical implications of technology, such as the IEEE Society on Social Implications of
Technology 10
and Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility 11 maintain
comprehensive websites covering their organization's field of
interest, including special pages for ethics-related
activities.
Unlike the ethics centers, which tend to be
university-based, these sites offer information and
perspectives on engineering ethics developed by the
volunteers and staff of the professional societies
themselves—an essential complement to the scholarly and
undergraduate education focus of much of the content found on
the university sites.
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V. Case Studies
The use of case studies is an important technique in
educating engineering and computer science students and
practitioners on the social and ethical implications of their
profession 12.
Over the past decade a wealth of case study materials have
been developed by various sources and many of these materials
have been made available on-line.
Collections of engineering ethics case studies can be
found at a number of websites. The Online Ethics Center for
Engineering and Science 33 includes more than thirty discussion
cases based upon cases considered by the NSPE in such areas
as public safety and welfare, conflict of interest, and
international engineering ethics. This site also contains
materials developed at the Center on such cases as Roger
Boisjoly and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. The Engineering Ethics home page at
Texas A&M University 34 includes three sets of case materials developed
with NSF funding: 1) about a dozen engineering ethics cases
and instructor guides for use in engineering courses,
including several well known ones such as the Hyatt Regency
walkway collapse and the B.F. Goodrich Air Brake Case (these
cases and introductory essays on engineering ethics are also
available from Texas A&M on disk in Wordperfect 5.1
format); 2) more than 30 cases and commentaries developed at
Western Michigan University's Center for the Study of Ethics
in Society, indexed by such topics as acknowledging mistakes,
environmental & safety concerns, and honesty and
truthfulness (interactive versions of these cases are also
available from the center on disk in MS-DOS format); and 3)
about seventy numerical cases specifically designed to be
utilized in required courses in civil, chemical, electrical,
and mechanical engineering, which were developed by faculty
and students at a workshop sponsored by NSF and the Harry E.
Bovay, Jr. Ethics Endowment.
In addition to case studies specifically developed to
highlight engineering ethics, other case study
materials can be found on the Web which may be of use in
teaching engineering ethics or courses dealing with the
environmental and societal impacts of technology. The Trade and Environment Database
maintained at The American University, for example, contains
dozens of detailed cases in twenty-eight categories dealing
with environmental problems and accidents which impact on
international trade 13. Individual cases can also be found at various
sites, such as the very detailed case study of the design
failures underlying The First Quebec Bridge
Disasterthat is maintained at Carleton University
14
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VI. Primary Source Archives
Many primary source documents are available on the WWW on
individual sites or in designated archives. This material is
an invaluable resource for individual research projects
conducted by faculty and/or students, and can also be very
useful in the construction of case studies as a supplement to
the "off-the-shelf" case studies discussed earlier in this
paper. For example, students, working in small groups, can be
assigned the task of researching, preparing and presenting
case studies to the class 15. Primary source materials available on-line
include, for example, bulletins of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission issued following the Three Mile Island accident 16 and advisories
from the Food and Drug Administration regarding the
Bjork-Shiley heart valve 17 and silicon breast implants 18. A number of archival sites
provide extensive access to ethics-related material,
including, for example, the server NASA maintains on the Challenger disaster19; and Project Polyn, a site maintained at the
Kurchatov Institute in Russia which focuses on the Chernobyl
accident and its aftermath 20. Archival material is also available on such
cases as the Exxon Valdez oil spill 21 and the Hanford
Nuclear reservation 22.
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VII. Papers, Reports and Journal
Articles
The Web includes a great deal of information on the
availability of traditional resources for engineering ethics
education including books, reports, journals, and
newsletters. In many cases, the content of these sources is
directly available on-line, such as the reports from the
NSF-funded ImpactCS Project (Social and Ethical
Impact of Computing) 23, and Professional Ethics Report, a
quarterly newsletter published by the American Society for
the Advancement of Science 24. A number of the ethics center sites also
include on-line reports and articles authored by members of
the center, for example, Michael Davis' well-known essay "Thinking Like an Engineer: The Place of a
Code of Ethics in the Practice of a Profession"35. Information on other
electronic resources, such as newsgroups and electronic
mailing lists is also readily available.
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VIII. The On-line Course Syllabus
In addition to providing information on engineering
ethics, the Web lends itself for use as a place to post a
syllabus and/or home page providing students with course
information and assignments. On-line syllabi are also a
valuable source of information on content and pedagogical
techniques for faculty who are developing and teaching
courses in engineering and computing ethics.
Beyond merely serving as an electronic reproduction of the
hardcopy course syllabus, however, the web version can be a
"living" course syllabus with hypertext links to on- and
off-site reading materials. Such links can be listed
separately on the course home page 25, or embedded in the electronic
version of the course outline and readings36. In the same manner that
library reserve readings can encourage students to use the
library, an on-line syllabus with hypertext links can provide
the students with experience at using "virtual" or digital
libraries.
Indeed, use of the Internet itself can serve as a case
study in engineering or computing ethics and the social
implications of technology 26. Ethical issues involving use of the Internet
include, for example, free speech, privacy, and intellectual
property rights.
An on-line syllabus, or a course home page, can also be
utilized to take advantage of Internet technology for the
enhancement of the course through such activities as student
webpage projects 37, on-line class discussion groups 27, and class newsgroups28. In an example
that combines two Internet technologies, one professor has
her students write critiques, in an "email journal," of
various controversial websites that are accessible from the
course home page 29.
While many engineering ethics home pages and course
syllabi make use of images, to date there have not been very
many instances where other forms of multimedia are employed.
The pace of change in Internet technology is such that it is
difficult to keep track of the possibilities for innovation
in on-line engineering ethics education. Such possibilities
include wider use of multimedia, simulations, and interactive
exercises. Because website development is a time-intensive
process, more funding mechanisms are needed to ensure that
innovations of this type in engineering ethics keep pace with
other areas of engineering education30.
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IX. The Web as an Interdisciplinary
Metaphor
Within the prevailing culture of engineering, a very high
premium is placed on technical solutions to problems 31. Consequently,
the importance of other approaches is often lost on engineers
and engineering students. Using the Web, a case study or
course unit can be constructed that draws upon technical
reports, social and ethical analyses, and media accounts of a
particular issue or problem. Often these documents will
themselves contain hypertext links to yet other information
with relevance to the problem or issue initially under
consideration. By illustrating in real-time the
interconnectedness of information from engineering, the
humanities and the social sciences, the Web thus functions as
a tangible metaphor for the interdisciplinary approach
necessary for a complete examination of ethics in engineering
and the societal implications of technology.
As with all legitimate approaches to learning, however,
there is a need for structure and intellectual rigor in
interdisciplinary approaches. Here the Web can also be a
valuable learning tool, for it is difficult without some
concerted effort to separate the wheat from the chaff that
appears on the Web. The phenomena of Web surfing can lead you
to exciting conclusions about the ways in which technical,
social and ethical analyses reinforce each other, or on a
wild goose chase wherein you see a lot of material but learn
very little.
While use of the Web serves as a reminder that not all
information is relevant or useful, interdisciplinary courses
and course materials can provide students with the experience
to filter information in a judicious manner. Parallel to the
need for better, "smart" Internet search tools is a need to
develop smart searchers, i.e. good judgment on the part of
the humans doing the searching. Courses and course modules
focused on engineering ethics and the social implications of
technology not only provide students with the knowledge and
critical thinking skills necessary to make difficult moral
decisions, but also give them exposure to the ethical,
social, economic and environmental framework in which all
engineering decisions are made. Seen in this light, the Web
is a complement to, rather than a replacement for,
traditional content and pedagogy in engineering ethics.
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Appendix
Outline: Web Clearinghouse for Engineering and
Computing Ethics
-
- Ethics Center Course Syllabi
- Professional Societies
- Codes of Ethics
- Conferences
- Books and Reports
- Newsletters and Journals
- On-line Articles
- Mailing Lists and Newsgroups
- Cases
- Other Engineering and Computing Ethics Resources
- Other Professional Ethics Indices
- World Wide Web Search Engines
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Acknowledgments
This paper was presented at the 1996 Frontiers in Education Conference, Salt
Lake City, Utah, November 6-9, 1996 in the session on "Ethics
in the Engineering Curriculum." I wish to thank the Session
Chair, Stephen H. Unger, for inviting me to participate.
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Joseph R. Herkert School of Applied Arts and Sciences, at Arizona State University, 7001 E. Williams Field Road, Bell Hall, Room M3, Mesa AZ 85212.
Phone: 480-727-1548
Email: joseph.herkert@asu.edu
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