Andrea Melendez
Thomas Kil
Colin Hurlbut
Douglas Hutchings
Mark Iskarous
E125 Group Project Proposal
The goal of this project is to design a class for students who plan on entering the engineering industry while providing them the tools to make sound ethical decisions. Though engineering is thought to be based solely on scientific theories and problem solving, it encompasses more than just an in-depth academic background. Engineers must have other skill sets that will help in the real world. Scientific results and experiments are not absolute and engineers must learn to realize the risks associate with their profession. Ethics plays a major role in analyzing risks and also dealing with other ethical issues that might arise. This class is a 15 week decal that that will meet for two hours a week. The class will have a moderator who facilitates the discussions and will invite professional engineers from industry who will share their experience as an engineer and the ethical issues they face. The class will be broken down into different sub-sections that will cover different areas of ethical issues which will relate to the speaker’s experience.
A proposed syllabus for this class is shown below.
Engineering Ethics:
Professional’s Perspectives
Spring 2014
Sections: TBA
Facilitators: Andrea Melendez, Thomas Kil, Colin Hurlbut, Douglas Hutchings, Mark Iskarous
Course Description
Engineering Ethics is a topic that is not often taught properly to engineering students. While many classes on this topic exist at Berkeley, this class will specifically focus on engineering ethics as it applies to engineers’ professional work. Specifically, we will examine ethical dilemmas not only in well known case studies but also in the day-to-day activities of practicing engineers who will guest lecture our class. This course is intended to provide a broad introduction to engineering ethics, by examining real life problems. Class structure will be two hours per week, usually with one hour of instruction followed by one hour of activity.
Learning Objectives
As a result of this course, you will have developed an understanding of the implications of:
Different Ethical Frameworks: utilitarian, virtue, right ethics, etc.
Stakeholders: A group’s responsibility based upon their position to the problem
Organizational Structure: The role, and the influence of, management
Grading
Students will be graded based on attendance, homework and class participation.
To pass the course, students must attend all 4 core lessons, miss fewer than 3 classes, and complete the homework.
Attendance
Because of way in which our class will build on earlier material, students must make their best effort to attend the first N core lessons. No more than 3 absences will be allowed in total.
Please contact the head course facilitator for excuse requests from the core lessons.
Homework
Homework will be graded for completion. Most homework will be minor background reading on that week’s case study.
Schedule
| Week | Day | Topic | Reminder |
| 1 | 2/4 | Introduction, Overview, and Why ethics?
|
|
| 2 | 2/11 | Case Study #1: Challenger, Columbia, and Apollo 13 | |
| 3 | 2/18 | Discussion of ethical Frameworks | |
| 4 | 2/25 | Case Study #2: Competing companies in Silicon Valley
|
Guest Lecture by a Tech Company Engineer |
| 5 | 3/4 | Case Study #3: The Bay Bridge
|
Guest Lecture by Prof Astaneh-Asl |
| 6 | 3/11 | Case Study #4: Household Products | Guest Lecture by a Product Design Engineer |
| 7 | 3/18 | Teaching ethics: Henry’s Daughters | |
| 8 | 3/25 | Case Study #5: Engineering Ethics Education | |
| 9 | 4/1 | Case Study #6: Chevron Oil Refinery
(Richmond, CA) |
Guest Lecture by an Energy Corporation Engineer |
| 10 | 4/8 | Case Study #7: Five Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Daiichi | Guest Lecture by Dr. Scarlat |
| 11 | 4/15 | Case Study #8: Citicorp Center | |
| 12 | 4/22 | Open topic | |
| 13 | 4/29 | Wrap-up |
Grading comments:
Very interesting idea, which seems feasible to implement. The schedule of the class looks great. Your analysis, however, needs to be further developed.
“Though engineering is thought to be based solely on scientific theories and problem solving, it encompasses more than just an in-depth academic background.”
What do you mean by “in-depth academic background?” Does “academic background” include philosophy, literature, business, psychology?
When you say that it is “thought” – by who is this thought, and how do you know? You need to support this statement. Is this based on your own experience as an engineering student at Cal? Is this based on articles that you’ve read on the practice or education of engineers? Furthermore, how do you know that it encompasses more? You need to support these statements.
“Scientific results and experiments are not absolute and engineers must learn to realize the risks associate with their profession.”
What do you mean by absolute? Do you mean that the context is important? Do you mean that the information might be observed to be erroneous? Do you mean that they’re incomplete? You need to better support the connection between “not absolute” and “risks.”
“Ethics plays a major role in analyzing risks and also dealing with other ethical issues that might arise. ”
“ethics … deals with other ethical issues” – you need to elaborate here. What is it that you’re trying to point out. I am not convinced by this sentence that ethics is an important part of the engineering profession.
“ethics plays a role in analyzing risks” – interesting statement. You should elaborate here. What kind of a role? Can you give an example? Analyzing risks has many components: defining risks, quantifying risks, managing risks, communicating risks. Where does ethics come into play and how?
“Engineering Ethics is a topic that is not often taught properly to engineering students. “
You need to explain what is missing, and why that missing piece is important. You’re making an inflammatory statement here – and stylistically there may be a good reason to do so. But such statements must be well supported by arguments. Otherwise, I would advise more humble statements.
“Specifically, we will examine ethical dilemmas not only in well-known case studies but also in the day-to-day activities of practicing engineers who will guest lecture our class.”
Very interesting idea. You should explain why this is important. Has something changed between now, and the date of the ethics case studies? Is there additional value in discussing open-ended questions, whose resolutions we don’t yet know? Are students better engaged by current events?
Peer Review for Group 4:
I like the idea of running a decal, and the content was good too. Your list of guest lecturers were promising and I believe your proposal to be very feasible and effective. I especially appreciated the range of topic covered from ethics in household products to ethics in big architectural and engineering feats such as the Bay Bridge. These choices keep variety but also stay relevant to the class. I believe there is a lot to be discussed on the expansion of household products from purchasing, marketing, and competition, to mass production.
The only problem I see with the class is enrolment. Because the decal is structured very similarly to E125, who would be your target audience? Could you maybe suggest the decal as an expansion onto E125? So something that can be taken concurrently and suggested to further develop the idea of ethics.
What I would like to see offered in the decal is the professional application of ethics. I dont think it is clear what ethics is in the professional sense. Most people only see ethics as a social concept and dont see the point of learning it. I believe you can generate a lot of interest and hype by introducing and teaching how you can earn a living from ethics, and how ethics play a role in professional engineering.
All in all I enjoyed the presentation and I feel the group did a good job in the presentation of their topic as well as the explanation of what they plan to do with their project, the decal. It is something that can be implemented and can be very effective if taught well.
See personal blog for grading comments for the peer review.