Section 101, Group 2 Ethics Project Proposal

Ian Mair

Ayla Peters

John Norton

Cory McDowell

Group 2 Project Proposal

Throughout the course of the semester, we have learned about various schools of ethical thought and how they apply to engineering. We have also discussed and analyzed various engineering situations in which we are called to make an ethical decision based on our values and defend the decisions we make. However, the environment in an engineering firm or in a company that employs engineers is vastly different than that of an academic setting, and we feel that although this class has helped us to recognize ethical issues and identify why it is paramount that we deal with them rather than push them under the rug, many students going into the engineering field straight out of college do not know what resources there are for them to deal with the issues they face. This can be detrimental for both the new employee and the company: the employee may feel that they are unequipped to address the issues (for example, if the employee is a junior engineer and has very limited ways to reach management, or if they are threatened by their superiors and told to keep quiet), and it is detrimental to the company because employees may not say anything about issues that can harm the company’s revenue or reputation later on, or even issues that are endangering their lives or the lives of others.

To deal with the ethical issues that are found on a day-to-day basis around the workplace, we are proposing to establish a company that will serve as a resource for employees and employers in dealing with specific ethical issues they have found. Our plan is for this company to be an outside, nonbiased firm that will not only educate employees about the resources available to them (such as OMBUDS, outside organizations, pertinent legislation, etc.), but also act as a bridge to those witnessing/experiencing the ethical issues for themselves and management, who may not be aware of or understand the gravity of these issues. The goal for our company is to educate employees about the different resources that are available to them so they can deal with the problems they face, but also to establish more preventative (rather than reactive) methods in dealing with ethical problems in the workplace.

In order to be most effective in accomplishing our company’s goals, we would maintain small close knit teams of 4 members. Each business or company that we provide ethics consultation for, will be assigned a single team. That team would be responsible for conducting a full scale investigation into that companies ethics policies as well as workplace environment. Upon conclusion of the investigation, the team would present their findings in a manner that they feel best communicates their message to the employees. Furthermore, that team would work to maintain a relationship with that corporate customer to follow up on the effectiveness of our service as well as provide consulting for their future company ethics concerns. Teams will be comprised of an field specialist, a legal consultant, a presentation designer, and a group leader. The field specialist’s responsibilities are to bring domain specific knowledge of the types of ethical issues in the customer’s field. The legal consultant’s job is to understand the company’s legal structure and extract pieces pertinent to potential ethics issues. The presentation designer is in charge of coalescing the main ideas revealed from the investigation into the best means with which to present that to the employees. Finally, the group leader serves as the point of contact with the corporate customer. Each group will be hand selected to suit the customer and be educated on how to best conduct an ethics consultation by an in-house training program our company provides.

A specific example of a resource our company will relay to employees is The Whistleblower Protection Programs offered by the United States Department of Labor. A whistleblower is someone who exposes misconduct or dishonest or illegal activity in an organization. The program provides information about the different statutes that protect whistleblowers from retaliation from their employers, and it even gives someone the opportunity to file a complaint. It might dissuade an employee from reporting misconduct if he/she fears repercussions from his/her company, but if an employee knows he/she is protected by the statutes outlined in the Whistleblower Protection Program, then he/she can feel comfortable to expose and thus eliminate misconduct in the workplace. Whether an employee knows about such a resource dictates whether that employee will do what is right even when the employee is ordered to do what is wrong, and that is why our company is so important.

Another subject that is particularly important to engineers is that of the intellectual property rights of an employee. In general, if an engineer is an employee of a company, any idea or invention that this engineer develops while working for the company is the property of the company, not the engineer. Even if the engineer develops this invention outside of work, if he/she uses the company in any way at all (even something as small as using the company copy machine), then the company can claim the invention. What our company will do is warn employees about their very limited intellectual property rights and advise employees as to how they can develop ideas without sacrificing their rights. These rights vary on a case-by-case basis, depending on the contract signed between the company and the employee, so our company would read over each contract and levy advice accordingly.

Another confusing issue that our company would clear up is that of bribery. We would answer the question of what exactly is bribery? Is taking a client out to a nice dinner bribery? Well, in the medical industry the answer is yes because specific laws have been enacted forbidding pharmaceutical representatives from even giving doctors free pens. However, in other industries, this is completely acceptable and deemed as “customer entertainment”. Our company would illuminate the line between entertainment and bribery, allowing employees to do their jobs and be certain whether or not they are being ethical.

Throughout this course, we have seen the devastation that can occur when an engineer makes the wrong choice in an ethical dilemma. Existing ethical resources are often overlooked or ignored by employees of many corporations. Our consulting company will make sure ethical resources are improved and noticed. If an employee needs to learn about his or her available ethical resources at the time he or she has an ethical dilemma, it is too late. By educating employees about what they can do before any incident occurs, this proactive rather than retroactive approach can hopefully eliminate most ethical dilemmas, as employees will have been taught how to conduct themselves properly. Through improvement of resources and better-aware employees, our consulting company will work to eliminate ethical dilemmas, and work towards having engineers making a purely positive impact.

See our civic engagement poster to be presented at an engineering convention next semester here: Group2CivicEngagementPoster.

Group 6 – Group Project Proposal

1. Ethical Project Proposal Summary

The audience of our project is UC Berkeley Community, students, student engineers. The topic of our project is designed to follow up to ethics week, and promoting ethics in the sciences by explaining ethics and making it fun. When brainstorming as a group our first ideas included:

  • Anonymous. blog to encourage sharing of Ethical narratives and questions

  • A physical ‘Dropbox’ in a University plaza for people to leave notes with ethical issues they encounter

  • Monthly open meetings at public areas of the University

Our initial chosen plan was to hold a small, informal information event in either a classroom or on Sproul plaza with a few of the student engineering groups on campus (Engineers Without Borders, Super Mileage Vehicle Team, Bridge Building Challenge Team etc) where campus goers can learn about why group members chose to join and inspire others to join as well.   

However, we felt this would not communicate the questions that ethics in engineering pose, and also wanted to create an outcome that could be shared by social media, the most used communication form of our intended audience. After one of our group members spoke to the prospective groups, we were also concerned the resources required to hold an event were too ambitious, as we would need publicity help, making posters and gaining campus awareness about our proposed event in the science classroom and just Berkley in general. We would also need to rent a few tables and possibly a microphone or classroom on Sproul.

We decided to change our project when we were inspired when one of our group volunteered at the booth during Ethics Week. We decided the filming of people answering ethical questions would be the perfect opportunity and medium to engage our audience and make a video as our project deliverable. We wanted to capture the broad spectrum of topics in Ethics, as we had found through our interviews, and also felt a video was the best way to communicate this in a sharable, easily accessible manner.

 

2. Summary of Ethical Interviews

Alton:

I interviewed Professor Vern Paxson who studies computer security related to the internet, such as cyber attacks and cyber defense.

He’s worked as a network administrator.

  • Ethical challenge faced: Seeing suspicious network activity from a customer that might be illegal, and deciding whether to investigate or not. He and his coworkers decided to always turn the other way.

  • Other potential challenges: Government issues a request for company to give out data about a customer. Is the company loyal to the customer or the government? Even if what the government is doing is legal, is it ethical?

  • Given the recent fall out of the NSA spying on U.S. citizens, where do we draw the line between looking for criminals and protecting the innocent? Very grey area, and Prof. Paxson didn’t have a definitive answer.

  • Ethical Resources: Electronics Frontier Foundation. IEEE code of ethics.

 

Sonia:

Professor Grace O’Connell of UC Berkeley’s Mechanical Engineering department researches the effects of damage and repair on human spinal tissues. Such research demands strict guideline and ethical best practices to protect the patients, the researcher and their institution.  Professor O’Connell explained how many tissues for experimentation are gathered from waste human tissue from surgeries in hospitals, with the patient tissue donor giving written consent before the surgery, having been informed it would be for research purposes. The ability to ask for such tissues and to use them for experimentation is closely regulated and controlled by multiple agencies.

  • The National Institute of Health (NIH) Office of Clinical Research Policy Analysis and Coordination, who work to standardize and promote consistent policies across the NIH, for NIH funded research with human specimens and data.

  • The Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) provides leadership in the protection of the rights, welfare, and wellbeing of subjects involved in research conducted or supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

  • Access to human tissues is controlled through these by a system of forms, and despite occasional clerical delays at some institutions, Professor O’Connell gave an overall positive view, including that possible issues were identified, solutions found, and contingency plans made. The overall conclusion was the regulations supported research and provided a source of support and information for the researcher. They also provided clear, open information, which both scientists and the public have access to, making complex ethical topics understandable and useful.

 

3. Community Engagement

Our group covered a wide variety of ethical issues and topics, interviewing individuals from a variety of professions – we felt a common theme was one of public views of the ethical issues, and decided the way to address this was to create a video of members of the UC Berkeley community being asked questions about ethical topics, to create awareness of ethical issues. The video will be freely shared with the community, and we aim to screen the video at UC Berkeley community meetings on campus.

 

4. Conclusion

Raising awareness of ethical issues among the UC Berkeley community is vital help ensure future Engineers, scientists and the public we serve make ethical choices for all of us. Using modern technology to create and share a video with thought provoking questions is our group’s way of helping this come to fruition.

 

Group Project Proposal

Jason Liu

Paolo Fonseca

Shawn Nirody

Timothy Brown

After comparing interview responses, it became clear that there were few well defined ethical policies. We thought that it would be a good idea to do a project to help shape policy in the workplace and in research. The main issue with this is that industry and academia are completely different. The motivation behind the work, the structure, and the people in charge are different. Moreover, each engineering field has its own unique issues that arise from its work. Therefore proposing some sort of blanket policy that is also effective is impossible. We believe the only way to create a better and more comprehensive policy is to do it on a more individual basis. Thus, our goal is to promote ethical awareness among students of engineering and other science related disciplines who, as professionals, will face certain ethical issues whether they choose to work in academia or in industry.

Prior to taking this class, we had not put much thought into how ethics could apply to what we do within our respective fields. Our ethics in the news discussions were really what made us think more about our roles as engineers. Taking a cue from Roeser’s paper, “Emotional Engineers,” it is much easier for engineers to make ethical decisions themselves rather than having to consult or be monitored by other professionals who’ve had extensive training in ethical matters. We realized that if students begin thinking about the ethical implications of their actions and engaging in open discussions now, then as professionals, they could help shape the future of ethical policy in the workplace and lab.

Yet an engineer must recognize when a situation demands ethical consideration. After this point, the engineer is responsible for taking the initiative to look up the appropriate protocols and guidelines and confer with their superiors. Since this is no easy task, we must encourage students to ask questions and discover ethics and how to apply it for themselves. This is why we decided to create a flyer illustrating the importance of ethics. In order to get the conversation started, we included hypothetical scenarios that we believe would be common for students and young professionals along with thought provoking questions.

Scenario #1: Walking out of my E45 class last semester, my good friend Robin and I, were discussing the topic of today’s lecture: Fracture Mechanics. Our professor began a discussion on disagreements between engineers and management in industry. At some point, Robin asked an important question: “Why would managers/administrators disagree with engineers?”  Answering this question was difficult, but towards the end of the conversation, we were inclined toward the notion that engineers will rely on scientific / hard data results while managers will look for what they perceive as signs of progress. This small difference in thinking can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication. Therefore, it is critical to spread the word on the importance of ethics in the work industry.

Scenario #2: For one of our projects we were required to interview engineers and scientists about ethical issues in their fields. It became clear to us that for many professionals ethical procedure is a grey area, and it is often difficult to abide by the regulations. My interviewee described her experience when she worked on a project on the locomotion of snakes. To prevent the snakes from escaping and being harmed, an Institutional Review Board, an ethics committee that, among other things, regulates the use of animals in research, suggested that the research team surround the cages with water. Since the lab did not have room for a small moat, the team placed the cages on a raised platform in an inflatable kiddie pool. This set up was quickly taken down for the inconvenience it caused. In this case, both groups were at fault. Perhaps a better-defined and context specific policy would have ensured stricter adherence to the guidelines for animal care.

The flyer we are designing will essentially be a crash course in ethics. The basic (and rough) plan is as follows. First off, it will broadly define ethics and what constitutes an ethical dilemma. Next will be short descriptions of the two scenarios mentioned earlier. This will be followed by a section on conflicts of interest and other pressures felt by engineers and scientists that may tempt them to “cut corners.” There will be a blurb on the current state of regulation in science and industry, including the “frontiers” (or even wildernesses), i.e. grey areas on which there is no consensus. The final portion will include a list of organizations and institutions with ethical guidelines, along with their respective websites. By distributing these flyers, we hope to create an ethically aware student body who will be motivated to become ethically informed and skilled professionals.

 

Group 5’s Evaluation of Group 6

Group 6 created a board game they felt would teach kids about engineering ethics.

The board itself was very colorful and creative, but there were certain areas on the board such as, “Mountain of Fear,” that didn’t seem to really mean anything. Making a cute and colorful board is a good thing, but it partially depends on the age group, which was one of the biggest concerns about this project. The ethical issues they would bring up as the focus of the game would have to be simple enough for children to understand, but still have a complex ethical dilemma. Most college students wouldn’t be interested in this kind of game, and there might be better and more informative ways to teach about ethics. High school kids might enjoy it as a break from regular class, as long as they topics are understandable and interesting. Before high school, kids might not understand the ethical issues, and might not see other perspectives or learn as much, but the board game looks like it was aimed at this age group. Then again, monopoly isn’t a super simple game either.

 

In fact, over-simplifying the board game might remove the analysis aspect that is crucial to the game- the object is to have players evaluate the pros and cons to each situation and then make their moves accordingly. Younger groups may have a simple “morally right” versus “morally wrong” situation, as there are the only “ethical dilemmas” they are capable of understanding.

Another issue was about who makes up the ethical issues, and how do they decide which issues to highlight. Some people care about specific issues more than others, and sometimes the difficulty in ethics is identifying the issue. Real life ethics issues are often quite complicated and often the ethical decision might cost you your job. It’s hard to say how you would act until you’re actually in one of these situations, and it’s unsure whether a board game could capture this idea. The idea that the players could come up with the ethical issues themselves is interesting, but might be difficult to actually implement.

 

 

Overall, if the board game was targeted at the right age group, the ethical issues where selected carefully, and the rules were simple to understand, this could be a great tool for teaching younger kids about difficult situations in ethics. It was proposed that this group could be an icebreaker for future E125 classes, and we feel like this would be an appropriate audience and setting. Also, we were wondering how this game would be marketed. Is the game meant to be sold to the general public or only to educators? Would this change the design of the game?

Group 1 Revised Proposal: E126

E126: Ethics in Engineering and Business

Fall 2014, 4 units

Lecture: MW 10:00-11:00AM, C220 Cheit Hall

Discussion: F 2:00-4:00PM, C220 Cheit Hall

 

Course Description

  • Rarely can we separate ethical questions into either the realm of business ethics or the realm of engineering ethics. Engineers are frequently put in positions that affect business and vice versa, but we either seldom consider ethical issues from both an engineering and business perspective or believe that business and engineering ethics are disparate. In this class we will consider both business ethics and engineering ethics in an attempt to create a system of values to help facilitate students in their future endeavors. This course takes a hands-on approach to understanding ethics through the use of case studies and discussions with representatives from industry.  Assignments include individual reflections on case studies. Students will be asked to analyze theses case studies from both an engineering and business perspective and make conclusions that try to satisfy both.

 

Prerequisites

  • E125 or Haas equivalent – application and analysis skills practiced in E125 will be highly emphasized and used in this class

 

Objectives

  • Analyze ethical issues from both a business and engineering viewpoint rather than just an engineering or just a business perspective

  • Understand compromises between business and engineering from an ethical perspective.

  • Practice communication and presentation skills (especially about technical subjects to a nontechnical audience)

  • Be able to identify ethical dilemmas and have a basic familiarity with approaching the problem

  • Recognize and become familiar with different ethical philosophies

  • Reflect upon the current role of ethics in the engineering and business industries and how it is effective or can be changed

  • Differentiate between responsibility to self, society, government

 

Logistics

  • Piazza will be our main course tool. You will be able to download course materials and announcements.

  • We will go field trip on 11/27. Let me know if you cannot attend on the day. I can provide alternative way to fulfill the requirement.

  • You must create an Edublogs account for this course. All of your assignments will be submitted on this platform. For convenience, we will link the edublogs to a Facebook group page, where students can see everything posted on the edublogs page. Any posts that students make on the Facebook group will also show up on the Edublogs website.

  • There is no textbook for this class, save the Earth!

 

Assignments and Evaluation

Participation (35%)

Each student is expected to attend all lectures and discussion unless previously discussed with the instructor. The main purpose of this course is to develop your communication skills; active participation will be required, especially during discussions on Fridays. Since there will be 50 students in the class, and we only have 2 hours of discussion per week, students may gain participation points by posting their ideas on their Edublogs or the Facebook group page. There will be a post after every discussion section for students to reply with their input on the topic covered during class.

Written Essay Responses (20%)

Throughout the school year, we will be watching two films (topic of films to be decided based upon student voting in the beginning of the semester) and a written response reflection will be required for one of the films. (Although not mandatory, you may choose to write a response on the other film as well and the highest grade between the two reflections will be counted)There will also be a written midterm where students will have to reflect upon the differences and similarities (if there are any) between managerial and engineering ethics and whether the two have the same expertise and responsibilities.

Case Study Report (25%)

Students will form a group of 4 students and research an ethical case study of their choice. Each student will analyze the decisions made during the dilemma from both an engineering and business managerial viewpoint and compare and contrast the two. Students will then create a 20 minute presentation discussing their findings and lead a discussion with the class.

Interview Report (20%)

Near the middle of the course, students will be required to conduct an interview with an industry personnel (preferably one that has a technical background and has transitioned into management or vice versa). A list of questions will be provided to help you start the conversation but it is completely up to you what you want to get out of the interview.

CPA Students

Students who are interested in taking the Certified Public Accounting Examinations upon graduation are required to take 10 units of Ethics Related courses in addition to their Accounting and Business Related Courses. The Haas School of Business currently offers 7 units that count towards your Ethics Related course work. Engineering 126 will allow student to fulfill their CPA Ethics requirements with a course that covers topics they may experience in their professions after graduation.

Group 1’s Peer Review of Group 2

Group 1: Luis Salado, JungYoun (Josh) Kwak, Yian (Annie) Cheng, Siddarth Sen

Group 2 proposed a mobile game application in which users are presented with two options of ethical problems; each problem has two pictures that depicts a good and bad aspect of the ethical dilemma and users are asked to pick the dilemma that is more ethical. There are multiple levels to the game in which the scenarios get more complicated and users are presented with a text description of the scenario.

The game proposal is definitely a very creative and reasonable approach to introduce users to ethical dilemmas; using a mobile application especially allows the game to be very accessible and the quick play mode is very useful since people normally just play a game or surf the internet on their phones anyways when they have a short amount of time to waste. The plans for the game were definitely very well thought out as Group 2 created a prototype simulation of the game, making their proposal a lot easier to follow and to imagine fully implemented and on the market for people to download. The game helps people go through decision making process of what is ethical and what is not and is a very effective way of introducing people to ethical dilemmas.

As was brought up in class, there are a few concerns with the logistics of the game that could be clarified further. How are scenarios going to be paired up with one another and through which criteria will they be chosen? You can’t calibrate or quantify ethical dilemmas so it’d be interesting to know how the situations will be paired up. Also who would be the people/company creating the application and the ethical dilemmas? How will you ensure that there will be no conflict of interest or bias so that one situation might be presented in a better light than another to make it seem more ethically dismissible?

Another suggestion is that after choosing one scenario, instead of moving right onto the next pair of pictures, there could be another screen of a brief description of the consequences or effects of each scenario. That way users would not only voice their opinion on what is ethical, but also have the opportunity to learn about the effects of their values and actions and potentially help users either solidify or change their opinions.

The last aspect that could be addressed is how are you going to ensure that users will continue to play this game and use this application after the first few rounds? There isn’t an incentive in place for users to continue to play, unlike other games where users will come back to play because they want to win or to level up.

Peer Review – Group 2 on Group 3

 

https://engineeringethics.edublogs.org/2013/11/27/entertainment-as-education-a-group-project-by-eric-ian-alex-and-sangmin/

Entertainment As Education Peer Review

Group 2 | Jack Bang | Alan Christopher | Sean Thomson | Ling Wang

 

Group 3’s proposal is a video game targeted at a younger audience. The goal is to take the user through the process of making ethical decisions at a young age so that ethics education is normalized. The hope is to make the storyline realistically complex and foggy so that users will more readily see a connection between what happens in the game and in real life.

Overall, we believe this is a very creative solution which uses something that is inherently enjoyable to teach life lessons and promote critical thinking. However, we believe this group still has a lot of details to hash out. The game itself will be complicated both in design and actual implementation and not much was said about how this was going to happen. Also, no concrete examples of story lines/subplots were given. Who will determine good or bad decisions and their resulting consequences? Will the storylines be based off of historical examples? Also, specifically what images will be used in assisting to make gameplay enjoyable and sustain the user’s interest? So while it is completely possible to implement, more details about the exact process and necessary resources would have been helpful in making the proposal more realistic. Something else we were hoping to learn is the hook of the whole thing. Basically, what will make children want to play this game? Video games are popular with the youth, yes. But not every video game is successful so what about this game will make it desirable to the target audience?

It is apparent that the team took into consideration many of the themes we have discussed this semester including the gray scale that is ethics and the need for further ethical education. We especially liked the idea of the user seeing long term consequences to their actions/decisions and the incorporation of a group dynamic. Hence, on a high level, their proposed product is well thought out and mimics reality well. But there seems to still be a lot of work to do on the detail design level which would greatly enrich this proposal.

Group 4’s Peer Review of Group 5

Group 5 Ethical Project Peer Evaluation

               The project that was proposed was unique and interesting. The idea of a debate tournament certainly encompasses many of the other aspects of engineering, aside from science and math, which are required for many engineers. The ability to effectively communicate ideas with others and present them in a structured order is an essential skill for engineers in the professional field.

              However, there are several suggestions that we would like to make concerning this project. Group 5 proposed a one-on-one debate that allotted speakers 5 min speaking time and 2 min rebuttal. We believe that in order to make the activity more efficient and fun for people, a specific debate style should be utilized. For example, public forum, which consists of a team of two, is an easy style that many high school students are accustomed to. Another option is an international debate style known as Karl Popper, consisting of a team of 3, which would prove to be easier for international students competing against other native speakers. The Lincoln-Douglas debate format (one –on-one), which places a heavy emphasis on logic, ethical values, and philosophy, is another style worth considering. Having a more structured debate format will be more efficient in helping to improve communication style and grasp how to approach ethical issues as these styles give speakers more time to speak and organize their thoughts. With more cross examination and rebuttals, the debate has the opportunity to intensify as debaters will be prompted to consider both sides of the topic rather than just one. Engineering ethics consist of more than just one side. There are multiple aspects to ethics and using these debate formats will allow debaters to contemplate the numerous aspects of engineering ethics.

                Additionally, we also believe that holding one tournament is impractical with 400+ students. Even if Group 5 were to implement the Karl Popper debate format (3 person group), there would be 100+ teams meaning that there would need to be more than 50 rounds. This would be logistically impossible as there would not be enough rooms to host all the rounds. Therefore, we propose that there should be more than one tournament, each with its own different emphasis. For example, one tournament could focus on the theme of safety and the other tournaments could address different topics such as different ethical views, etc. Also, rather than having the top 64 teams go into the elimination round, we believe that the number should be lowered to make the whole tournament run efficiently.

                 We applaud the idea of hosting a debate tournament as such an opportunity would encourage many of the new students to see aspects of engineering that they probably never have heard of before. In debating with and against other peers about engineering ethics, students will be able to confront their own questions concerning ethical dilemmas. Additionally, debating both sides of a topic facilitates consideration of both sides and students will ultimately be able to choose which position they favor, reflecting their personal preference regarding an ethical issue.

Group 4 Ethics Project Proposal

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  

 

Group Ethics Proposal Revised. Group Members: Deaho Moon, Biyung Song, Jack He, Binyi Liu, Ronak Vora

The following proposal is a movie night that aims to spark conversation within the engineering student body about ethical issues in the field of engineering. It is also intended to make these students aware of the ethical issues surrounding their fields. Ideally, the movie night, in addition to the previously stated goals, ought to make student engineers want to act ethically, however it is that they define what it is to be ethical, as they embark on their careers, research, etc. The invited audience, as has been alluded to above, will be engineering students. The reason the audience ought to be engineering students is because it is these students who make the future. These students are the people that will be building the next advances in technology for the next many decades. Many of these students will also move into managerial roles within technical companies. Here, especially, there is a need to act ethically. This is because the decisions they make potentially affect the lives of millions/billions of people across the globe. The reason we want these engineering students to start to talk about and be aware about ethical issue is because we believe that these things are key in accomplishing the third goal of making engineering students act ethically in their workplace/lab. We believe that as the ethics conversation becomes a more common topic of discussion, the stigma against whistle-blowing declines. As more people discuss ethics, more people will be in support of making the ethical decision. Thus, the pressure to just do as one is told, whether or not one agrees with what he/she is being told to do ethically, will diminish. We find this to be the case because, more likely than not, if one engineer has an ethical issue with decisions being made by management, other employees will have the same issues. If these employees, along with the engineers in managerial roles, had been used to discussing ethical point of views, we feel that the practicing engineers would be able to more clearly and affectively present their ethical points of view in ways that would make management reconsider their decisions. We believe that, with a constant discussion of ethics flowing in a workplace, the engineer’s career is much safer when he challenges a managerial decision as well.

The details of the movie night follow; they will be described via a real example of a movie night that we would put on (this example serves as the “kickstart”). First, invitations would be sent out to the invitees. The first 15 who accept will be able to attend. The reason we are keeping this group so small is because we want every single person to share their input in the post-movie discussion (which will be explained later), something that would be infeasible with a larger screening. We would have everyone meet in front of Soda Hall, in between Etcheverry and Soda Hall. The event would take place on a Friday night from 7-10pm so that people would be free and so that they can relax after a long week by watching a movie an engaging in a stimulating conversation afterwards. We will tell the students to get into groups of three (for logistics). Each of the five groups will be sent to individual rooms inside Soda. Here, there will be three tablets, each with a movie clip ready to go. The students will be instructed to rotate through the tablets and watch the video clips. At the end of each clip, there will be 1-2 questions to consider about the clip. The clips/questions serve to stimulate thoughts about particular ethical issues that we think are relevant and important and will be highlighted in the featured movie. These small clips will ensure that students will not miss main ethical issues within the feature film if they stop paying attention for a small period of time. For example, if the feature film was “Moon”, the three clips shown would be from “AI”, “The Island”, and “Gattaca”. Some questions that could be asked, based on specific clips from each movie, follow. For “The Island”, we would ask “What is the cost of the human being?” based on the clip: The Island. For “Gattaca”, we would ask “What makes one human being better than another?” and “Do human genes define the human being?” based on the clip: Gattaca. The feature film and the clips would be chosen such that the ethical issues highlighted by them parallel engineering ethical issues that are currently highlighted in the news.

Next, the students would be taken to HP Auditorium to watch the film. During the film, they will be asked to think about and write down ethical issues in engineering they would like to talk about in the discussion that will follow the movie. After the movie, we will have one of the group members, say, Ronak, go up to the front of HP auditorium to summarize what we thought were the main ethical issues that were brought about in the movie clips and the featured film. Then, we would introduce our guest speaker. In this case, we may get a professor who is highly involved in robotics/ genetic modification. We would say that he/she is here to moderate and stimulate discussion, as well as to put in his own input. The professor will also serve as an attraction for students to come if they wish to do research with this professor, talk to this professor one on one about careers, etc. The professor will serve as a sort of celebrity guest (especially if we attract notable faculty).

The discussion would start off by us having a raffle, just to get everyone a little bit more excited. Whoever won the raffle would get a prize, say, an Amazon gift card. But, there would be a catch. In order to claim the prize, the winner would have to be the first to express his opinion about the ethical issues in engineering he thought were brought up in the movies. He would have to discuss whether or not he/she thinks there was an ethical issue in the first place; if there was, he/she would be forced to tell the other students in attendance why he/she feels the way he/she does. In addition to that, he/she would need to identify real world situations where the issues he/she brought up were currently happening. Lastly, he/she would need to propose at least one solution to one of the ethical problems he identified. Indeed this would be a tall task, but a 200 dollar Amazon card would be a tall incentive. After he/she has received her prize, he/she will receive a ball to pass to anyone of his/her choosing. The person that receives the ball would then be forced to elaborate, agree, or disagree with the raffle winner. The ball and conversation would continue to flow in this manner, with the expert interjecting when he/she feels that what he/she has to say is important, relevant, or able to enhance the discussion being currently had.

This event would occur bi-monthly for a semester with the same set of students so that the conversation about ethics continues and becomes part of their lives instead of just a one night event. As time progresses, students would be encouraged to voice ethical concerns that they already have if they feel as though the ethical concerns we have brought up via the movie night are unimportant/trivial. The incentive to keep returning would be the raffle prizes, the ability to relax and watch a free movie after a long, stressful week at school, and the prominent guests we continue to rake in. We believe that this movie night will accomplish our goals because we feel that through discussion and through relating ethical issues to real world events in the post-movie discussion students will continue to want to discuss ethics even after the end of the movie nights. In addition, we hope that, by keeping up with ethical issues for a full semester, engineering students will form a habit of keeping up with ethical issues throughout their careers. By staying aware of ethical issues and keeping the discussion alive, we believe that engineering students will be able to affectively promote ethical decisions in the workplace.