Ethics Across The Curriculum: An Effective Response To Abet 2000

Abstract

approach to our Engineering school which is in the process of preparing for their ABET accreditation visit. II. How EAC contributes to ABET 2000 ComplianceEthics enters into the ABET 2000 accreditation process particularly in criterion 3f and 3h of the widely discussed a-k criteria of outcomes and assessment for all engineering programs. These state that all engineering graduates must have:• an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility (3f)• the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global and societal context (3h). Ethical considerations are also relevant to criterion 4, which states that all engineering students should have a "major design experience"… based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier coursework and incorporating engineering standards and realistic constraints that include most of the following considerations: economic; environmental; sustainability; manufacturability; ethical; health and safety; social; and political. (emphasis added) EAC has several features that make it an effective response to ABET 2000:

Implementation Of Ethics Education Throughout An Engineering College

“…Unless the required course is supplemented by further ethics instruction in mainstream engineering courses, students may be left with the impression that ethics is a sidebar rather than an integral part of their engineering studies. 7,8 In a single course there is rarely enough time for students to practice applying the ethical principles throughout a variety of situations.…”

“…In response to the problems encountered with the freestanding course and the EATC methods, a two-stage model has been proposed for teaching ethics in engineering. 7,8,9,12 The two-stage model overcomes the shortfalls of the two methods most commonly used while incorporating the positive aspects of each.…”

Using Qualitative Data to Further Examine Flagged Items from the Engineering Ethics Reasoning Instrument (EERI)

“…In the wake of the surge of ethics education research in the engineering education community following ABET's new 2000 criteria [3], some new engineering context based moral development instruments were being developed [4] [5][6] [7]. One of the instruments developed, the EERI, has managed to gain some measure of wider awareness within the engineering education community (compared to others).…”

Ethical Climate in Multidisciplinary Teams: Development of the TECS

“…Since the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) called for a greater emphasis on engineering ethics education 1 , researchers, and teaching professionals have incorporated applied ethics into the engineering curriculum. 2 Typical ethical interventions incorporated into the engineering curriculum include using ethical frameworks, case studies, engineering ethical codes, philosophical writings, service learning activities, online ethics tutorials, and lectures on moral philosophy. 3 These interventions tend to put most of the emphasis on teaching the pedagogy and neglect the long-term practical application.…”