There is growing need for hybrid curricula that integrate constructivist methods from Science and Technology Studies (STS) into both engineering and policy courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. However, institutional and disciplinary barriers have made implementing such curricula difficult at many institutions. While several programs have recently been launched that mix technical training with consideration of “societal” or “ethical issues,” these programs often lack a constructivist element, leaving newly-minted practitioners entering practical fields ill-equipped to unpack the (...) politics of knowledge and technology or engage with skeptical publics. This paper presents a novel format for designing interdisciplinary coursework that combines conceptual content from STS with training in engineering and policy. Courses following this format would ideally be team taught by instructors with advanced training in diverse fields, and hence co-learning between instructors and disciplines is a key element of the format. Several instruments for facilitating both student and instructor collaborative learning are introduced. The format is also designed for versatility: in addition to being adaptable to both technical and policy training environments, topics are modularized around a conceptual core so that issues ranging from biotech to nuclear security can be incorporated to fit programmatic needs and resources. (shrink)

What training should engineering students receive to enable them to contribute to reducing bias, discrimination and the persistent lack of diversity in engineering? Collaboration is central to professional engineering work and, consequently, teamwork and group projects are increasingly present in engineering curricula. However, the influence of unconscious bias on interactions within teams can negatively affect women and underrepresented groups and is now recognised as an important engineering ethics issue. This paper describes a workshop designed (...) to enable engineering students to work equitably in diverse teams. Key features of the workshop include (1) the emotionally safe, empowering and warm environment created, (2) the creation of opportunities for students to discuss and apply the issues raised to their own engineering projects, and (3) the opportunities to practice the use of both proactive and reactive strategies to address bias and discrimination in teams. The evaluation of the workshop suggests that engineering students regarded both onsite and online formats as providing useful skills that they intended to apply in practice. Follow-up evaluations suggest that the workshop leads to behavioural change, especially the use of proactive teamwork strategies intended to reduce the impact of unconscious bias. (shrink)

In the past few years, calls for integrating ethics modules in engineering curricula have multiplied. Despite this positive trend, a number of issues with these ‘embedded’ programs remains. First, learning goals are underspecified. A second limitation is the conflation of different dimensions under the same banner, in particular confusion between ethics curricula geared towards addressing the ethics of individual conduct and curricula geared towards addressing ethics at the societal level. In this article, we propose a tripartite (...) framework to overcome these difficulties. Our framework analytically decomposes an ethics module into three dimensions. First, there is the ethical dimension, which pertains to the learning goals. Second, there is the moral dimension, which addresses the moral relevance of engineers’ conduct. Finally, there is the political dimension, which scales up issues of moral relevance at the civic level. All in all, our framework has two advantages. First, it provides analytic clarity, i.e. it enables course instructors to locate ethical dilemmas in either the moral or political realm and to make use of the tools and resources from moral and/or political philosophy. Second, it depicts a comprehensive ethical training, which enables students to both reason about moral issues in the abstract, and to socially contextualize potential solutions. (shrink)

As attention to the pervasiveness and severity of environmental challenges grows, technical universities are responding to the need to include environmental topics in engineering curricula and to equip engineering students, without training in ethics, to understand and respond to the complex social and normative demands of these issues. But as compared to other areas of engineering ethics education, environmental ethics has received very little attention. This article aims to address this lack and raises the question: How (...) should we teach environmental ethics to engineering students? We argue that one key aspect such teaching should address is the tendency of engineers towards technical framing of (social) problems. Drawing then on engineering ethics pedagogy we propose that the competencies of moral sensitivity and critical thinking can be developed to help engineering students with problem (re)framing. We conclude with an example from our teaching that operationalizes these competencies. (shrink)

This paper addresses several concerns in teaching engineering ethics. First, there is the problem of finding space within already crowded engineering curricula for meaningful discussions of ethical dimensions in engineering. Some engineering programs may offer entire courses on engineering ethics; however, most do not at present and may not in the foreseeable future. A promising possibility is to weave ethics into already existing courses using case studies, but most current case studies are not well (...) integrated with engineering technical analysis. There is a danger that case studies will be viewed by both instructors and students as departures from “business as usual”—interesting perhaps, but not essentially connected with “real” engineering. We offer a case study, inspired by the National Society of Professional Engineer’s popular video Gilbane Gold, that can be used to make the connection. It requires students to engage in technical analysis, but in a context that makes apparent the ethical responsibility of engineers. Further, the case we present marks a significant departure from more typical cases that primarily focus on wrongdoing and its prevention. We concentrate more positively on what responsible engineering requires. There is a need for more such cases, regardless of whether they are to be used in standard engineering courses or in separate courses in engineering ethics. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, the urgent problems the world is facing (the UN Sustainable Development Goals) are increasingly related to vast and intricate ‘systems of systems’, which comprise both socio-technical and eco-systems. In order for engineers to adequately and responsibly respond to these problems, they cannot focus on only one technical or any other aspect in isolation, but must adopt a wider and multidisciplinary perspective of these systems, including an ethical and social perspective. Engineering curricula should therefore focus (...) on what we call ‘comprehensive engineering’. Comprehensive engineering implies ethical coherence, consilience of scientific disciplines, and cooperation between parties. (shrink)

In the twenty-first century, the urgent problems the world is facing (the UN Sustainable Development Goals) are increasingly related to vast and intricate ‘systems of systems’, which comprise both socio-technical and eco-systems. In order for engineers to adequately and responsibly respond to these problems, they cannot focus on only one technical or any other aspect in isolation, but must adopt a wider and multidisciplinary perspective of these systems, including an ethical and social perspective. Engineering curricula should therefore focus (...) on what we call ‘comprehensive engineering’. Comprehensive engineering implies ethical coherence, consilience of scientific disciplines, and cooperation between parties. (shrink)

Some engineering educators recognize the necessity and challenges of teaching students moral sensitivity. As recently pointed out by some scholars, along with moral sensitivity, promoting “self-knowledge” is significantly lacking in engineering curricula. We suggest that the “ethics autobiography” employed in some health and psychological science programs can serve as a useful tool for helping engineering students develop moral sensitivity and self-reflective competencies. First, this paper briefly discusses some unique potential strengths of introducing ethics autobiography as a (...) tool for moral pedagogy to engineering education. Second, this paper provides five specific examples on how to implement ethics autobiography in the classroom. Among the five examples, two are directly related to engineering education and the other three can easily be adapted to meet the needs of engineering education. Finally, this paper concludes with some discussion of the implications of ethics autobiography for engineering ethics education reform and the limitations and ethical considerations of using autobiography in moral pedagogy. (shrink)

Feminist contributions to the science curricula in higher education constitute invaluable but often overlooked resources for truly effective communication about science. Here I share a sampling of feminist science studies and discuss the origins of this effort to create inclusive and less biased science curricula that serve all students and citizens. Challenges from scientists center on assumptions and values about the appropriate relationship between science and politics, while challenges from educators extend to assumptions about how science has been (...) taught. Currently, national and local curriculum transformation efforts are producing useful insights and materials. (shrink)

This inclusive cross-cultural study rethinks the nexus between engineering education and context. In so doing the book offers a reflection on contextual boundaries with an overall boundary crossing ambition and juxtaposes important cases of critical participation within engineering education with sophisticated scholarly reflection on both opportunities and discontents. Whether, and in what way engineering education is or ought to be contextualized or de-contextualized is an object of heated debate among engineering educators. The uniqueness of this study (...) is that this debate is given comprehensive coverage - presenting both instrumentally inclined as well as radical positions on transforming engineering education. In contextualizing engineering education, this book offers diverse commentary from a range of disciplinary, meta- and interdisciplinary perspectives on how cultural, professional, institutional, and educational systems contexts shape histories, structural dynamics, ideologies and challenges as well as new pathways in engineering education. Topics addressed include examining engineering education in countries ranging from India to America, to racial and gender equity in engineering education and incorporating social awareness into the area. Using context as "bridge" this book confronts engineering education head on. Contending engineering ideologies and corresponding views on context are juxtaposed with contending discourses of reform. The uniqueness of the book is that it brings together scholars from the humanities, the social sciences and engineering from Europe - both East and West - with the United States, China, Brazil, India and Australia. (shrink)

This paper applies a virtue epistemology approach to using the Internet, as to improve our information-seeking behaviours. Virtue epistemology focusses on the cognitive character of agents and is less concerned with the nature of truth and epistemic justification as compared to traditional analytic epistemology. Due to this focus on cognitive character and agency, it is a fruitful but underexplored approach to using the Internet in an epistemically desirable way. Thus, the central question in this paper is: How to use the (...) Internet in an epistemically virtuous way? Using the work of Jason Baehr, it starts by outlining nine intellectual or epistemic virtues: curiosity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual humility, attentiveness, intellectual carefulness, intellectual thoroughness, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual tenacity. It then explores how we should deploy these virtues and avoid the corresponding vices when interacting with the Internet, particularly search engines. Whilst an epistemically virtuous use of the Internet will not guarantee that one will acquire true beliefs, understanding or even knowledge, it will strongly improve one’s information-seeking behaviours. The paper ends with arguing that teaching and assessing online intellectual virtues should be part of school and university curricula, perhaps embedded in critical thinking courses, or even better, as individual units. (shrink)

Philosophy has not paid sufficient attention to engineering. Nevertheless, engineers should not use this as an excuse to ignore philosophy. The argument here is that philosophy is important to engineering for at least three reasons. First, philosophy is necessary so that engineers may understand and defend themselves against philosophical criticisms. In fact, there is a tradition of engineering philosophy that is largely overlooked, even by engineers. Second, philosophy, especially ethics, is necessary to help engineers deal with professional (...) ethical problems. A case study of ethics requirements for U.S. engineering curricula substantiates this point. Third, because of the inherently philosophical character of engineering, philosophy may actually function as a means to greater engineering self-understanding. (shrink)

This paper examines how young peoples’ lived experiences with personal technologies can be used to teach engineering ethics in a way which facilitates greater engagement with the subject. Engineering ethics can be challenging to teach: as a form of practical ethics, it is framed around future workplace experience in a professional setting which students are assumed to have no prior experience of. Yet the current generations of engineering students, who have been described as ‘digital natives’, do however (...) have immersive personal experience with digital technologies; and experiential learning theory describes how students learn ethics more successfully when they can draw on personal experience which give context and meaning to abstract theories. This paper reviews current teaching practices in engineering ethics; and examines young people’s engagement with technologies including cell phones, social networking sites, digital music and computer games to identify social and ethical elements of these practices which have relevance for the engineering ethics curricula. From this analysis three case studies are developed to illustrate how facets of the use of these technologies can be drawn on to teach topics including group work and communication; risk and safety; and engineering as social experimentation. Means for bridging personal experience and professional ethics when teaching these cases are discussed. The paper contributes to research and curriculum development in engineering ethics education, and to wider education research about methods of teaching ‘the net generation’. (shrink)

The inclusion of engineering standards in US science education standards is potentially important because of how limited engineering education for K-12 learners is, despite the ubiquity of engineering in students’ lives. However, the majority of learners experience science education throughout their compulsory schooling. If improved engineering literacy is to be achieved, then its inclusion in science curricula is perhaps the most efficient means. One significant challenge that arises, however, is in the framing of engineering (...) relative to science by both teachers and curriculum. Science and engineering are both distinct and interdependent. The nature of the contributions of science and engineering to one another has been an area of some examination in philosophy of technology and engineering, but little framing of this relationship has been conducted with K-12 science and engineering education contexts in mind. Nature of science is a critical layer of scientific understanding that has been used to explicitly support literacy in K-16 science classrooms for decades. However, engineering cannot be authentically and appropriately supported by NOS framing. There is an immediate need for discourse on the nature of engineering knowledge but not in isolation of NOS. Given the increasing inclusion of engineering in science classrooms, relationships between NOS and NOEK are in need of explication and argument. Our purpose is to promote a discussion about NOS, engineering, and the relationship between them without misrepresenting engineering as a subdomain of science or as an oversimplification of itself. (shrink)

Engineering educators have long discussed the need to teach professional responsibility and the social context of engineering without adding to overcrowded curricula. One difficulty we face is the lack of appropriate teaching materials that can fit into existing courses. The PRiME (Professional Responsibility Modules for Engineering) Project (http://www.engr.utexas.edu/ethics/primeModules.cfm) described in this paper was initiated at the University of Texas, Austin to provide web-based modules that could be integrated into any undergraduate engineering class. Using HPL (How (...) People Learn) theory, PRiME developed and piloted four modules during the academic year 2004–2005. This article introduces the modules and the pilot, outlines the assessment process, analyzes the results, and describes how the modules are being revised in light of the initial assessment. In its first year of development and testing, PRiME made significant progress towards meeting its objectives. The PRiME Project can strengthen engineering education by providing faculty with an effective system for engaging students in learning about professional responsibility. (shrink)

Cultivating an understanding of ethical responsibilities and the societal impacts of technology is increasingly recognized as an important component in undergraduate engineering curricula. There is growing research on how ethics-related topics are taught and outcomes are attained, especially in the context of accreditation criteria. However, there is a lack of theoretical and empirical understanding of the role that educators play in ethics and societal impacts instruction and the factors that motivate and shape their inclusion of this subject in (...) the courses they teach and co-curricular activities they mentor. The goal of this research was to explore the role of faculty’s personal influences on their inclusion of ESI instruction in these settings. Personal influences are distinguished from external or environmental drivers such as teaching assignments, university policies, and department curriculum decisions. This research employed a grounded theory methodology and extracted data from interviews with 19 educators who teach ESI to engineering students to develop an emergent conceptualization of personal influences. Four categorie were identified: intrapersonal, interpersonal, academic, and professional. The findings suggested a wide range of entry points into ESI instruction for faculty members who do not currently teach ESI and for those looking to expand the inclusion of ESI in their courses. Based on these findings, departments and administrators are encouraged to foster educators’ agency, support access to professional development and engagement, facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration, and broaden hiring decisions to account for the impact of educators’ holistic identity on their instruction. (shrink)

Flexibility is a desired characteristic that people must have to adjust to inevitable processes of economic, cultural, and political globalization. Engineering education reform is often used as a justification for changes in curricula, delivery modes, and problem solving that should lead to curriculum integration, modular pedagogies, and systemic reform. Some educators have incorporated the concept in their programs and courses in a variety of ways whereas others have resisted changes to this day. Yet a detailed analysis of the (...) meanings of flexibility, its origins and different forms, along with its challenges and opportunities for engineering education, remains to be done. This article surveys the historical origins of flexibility, identifies different forms of flexibility in engineering education, outlines existing challenges to flexibility-drive educational reform, and provides alternative views to the existing interpretation of flexibility in engineering education. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making is central to the practice of construction engineering and management. This is no more evident than in the twenty-first century, when the construction industry must function in very diverse organizational contexts. Whilst construction companies pursue projects in international markets, many investors are buying or forming joint ventures with domestic companies. New and varied professional attitudes have recently arrived in western markets such as the United States and Australia because construction companies are increasingly employing managers from developing nations (...) to undertake commercial and infrastructure engineering projects. In many developing countries the construction industry is vulnerable to unethical behavior or corruption – vulnerability in part because of differences in culture and managerial systems across countries; and this diversity is manifest in the different perspectives of professional ethics and professional practice. Importantly, professionals in construction engineering must be aware of these differences; however current ethics education for engineering professionals generally lacks global components. In this chapter, emphasis is placed upon professional registration, including mandatory awareness of professional ethics, as an imperative for the welfare of world citizens; discussion on the nature of the construction industry and globalized trends emphasizes why ethics and professional education must be integrated within civil and construction engineering and management curricula. Only then we can anticipate an appropriate educational foundation for professional registration of the international engineer. (shrink)

Fascinating and compelling in equal measure this volume presents a critical examination of the multilayered relationships between engineering and business. In so doing the study also stimulates ethical reflection on how these relationships either enhance or inhibit strategies to address vital issues of our time. In the context of geopolitical, economic, and environmental tendencies the authors explore the world that we should want to create and the role of the engineer and the business manager in this endeavor. Throughout this (...) volume the authors identify periods of alignment and periods of tension between engineering and business. They look at focal points of the engineering-business nexus related to the development of capitalism. The book explores past and present movements to reshape, reform, or reject this nexus. The volume is informed by questions of importance for industry as well as for higher education. These are: What kinds of conflict arise for engineers in their attempts to straddle both professional and organizational commitments? How should professionals be managed to avoid a clash of managerial and professional cultures? How do engineers create value in firms and corporations? What kinds of tension exist between higher education and industry? What challenges does the neoliberal entrepreneurial university pose for management, faculty, students, society, and industry? Should engineering graduates be ready for work, and can they possibly be? What kinds of business issues are reflected in engineering education curricula, and for what purpose? Is there a limit to the degree of business hybridization in engineering degree programs, and if so, what would be the criterion for its definition? Is there a place in engineering education curricula for reflective critique of assumptions related to business and economic thinking? One ideal of management and control comes to the fore as the Anthropocene - the world transformed into an engineered artefact which includes human existence. The volume raises the question as to how engineering and business together should be considered, given the fact that the current engineering-business nexus remains embedded within an economic model of continual growth. By addressing macro-level issues such as energy policy, sustainable development, globalization, and social justice this study will both help create awareness and stimulate development of self-knowledge among practitioners, educators, and students thereby ultimately addressing the need for better informed citizens to safeguard planet Earth as a human life supporting system. (shrink)

Global society is facing formidable current and future problems that threaten the prospects for justice and peace, sustainability, and the well-being of humanity both now and in the future. Many of these problems are related to science and technology and to how they function in the world. If the social responsibility of scientists and engineers implies a duty to safeguard or promote a peaceful, just and sustainable world society, then science and engineering education should empower students to fulfil this (...) responsibility. The contributions to this special issue present European examples of teaching social responsibility to students in science and engineering, and provide examples and discussion of how this teaching can be promoted, and of obstacles that are encountered. Speaking generally, education aimed at preparing future scientists and engineers for social responsibility is presently very limited and seemingly insufficient in view of the enormous ethical and social problems that are associated with current science and technology. Although many social, political and professional organisations have expressed the need for the provision of teaching for social responsibility, important and persistent barriers stand in the way of its sustained development. What is needed are both bottom-up teaching initiatives from individuals or groups of academic teachers, and top-down support to secure appropriate embedding in the university. Often the latter is lacking or inadequate. Educational policies at the national or international level, such as the Bologna agreements in Europe, can be an opportunity for introducing teaching for social responsibility. However, frequently no or only limited positive effect of such policies can be discerned. Existing accreditation and evaluation mechanisms do not guarantee appropriate attention to teaching for social responsibility, because, in their current form, they provide no guarantee that the curricula pay sufficient attention to teaching goals that are desirable for society as a whole. (shrink)

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering—channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter—proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (and, more briefly, Canada). (...) In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors. (shrink)

Increasing university students’ engagement with ethics is becoming a prominent call to action for higher education institutions, particularly professional schools like business and engineering. This paper provides an examination of student attitudes regarding ethics and their perceptions of ethics coverage in the curriculum at one institution. A particular focus is the comparison between results in the business college, which has incorporated ethics in the curriculum and has been involved in ethics education for a longer period, with the engineering (...) college, which is in the nascent stages of developing ethics education in its courses. Results show that student attitudes and perceptions are related to the curriculum. In addition, results indicate that it might be useful for engineering faculty to use business faculty as resources in the development of their ethics curricula. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary courses on science, engineering and society have been successfully established in two cases, at Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, and at the University of Hamburg, Germany. In both cases there were institutional and perceptual barriers that had to be overcome in the primarily disciplinary departments. The ingredients of success included a clear vision of interdisciplinary themes and didactics, and the exploitation of institutional opportunities. Haldun M. Ozaktas in Ankara used the dynamics of an accreditation process to establish courses on (...) engineering and society. At the University of Hamburg the introduction of optional courses into all curricula allowed for the establishment of a seminar series on physics and society, as well as on peace education and peace building. Both of these approaches have a weakness in common: the courses can disappear once their initiators have left, unless the interdisciplinary themes are integrated into compulsory core curricula. (shrink)

Without question “business ethics” is one of the hot topics of the day. Over the past months we have seen business after business charged with improper practices that violate commonly-accepted ethical norms. This has led to a loss of confidence in corporate management, and has had severe economic consequences. From many quarters business educators have heard the call to put more emphasis on ethical practices in their business courses and curricula. Engineering educators are also heeding this call, since (...) the practice of engineering usually involves working for (or leading) a business and/or engaging in business transactions. In the summer of 2002, Auburn University’s Engineering Professional Development program made the decision to produce—based on the author’s Executive MBA course in Business Ethics—a distance-delivered continuing education program for professional engineers and surveyors. Participants across the USA now may use the course to satisfy continuing education requirements with respect to professional licensing and certification. This paper outlines the purpose and content of the course and describes its production, distribution, application, and evaluation. (shrink)

This paper considers an approach to teaching ethics in bioengineering based on the How People Learn (HPL) framework. Curricula based on this framework have been effective in mathematics and science instruction from the kindergarten to the college levels. This framework is well suited to teaching bioengineering ethics because it helps learners develop “adaptive expertise”. Adaptive expertise refers to the ability to use knowledge and experience in a domain to learn in unanticipated situations. It differs from routine expertise, which requires (...) using knowledge appropriately to solve routine problems. Adaptive expertise is an important educational objective for bioengineers because the regulations and knowledge base in the discipline are likely to change significantly over the course of their careers. This study compares the performance of undergraduate bioengineering students who learned about ethics for stem cell research using the HPL method of instruction to the performance of students who learned following a standard lecture sequence. Both groups learned the factual material equally well, but the HPL group was more prepared to act adaptively when presented with a novel situation. (shrink)

With the advent of the newest technologies, it is necessary for engineering to incorporate the integration of social responsibility and technical integrity. A possible approach to accomplishing this integration is by expanding the culture of the engineering profession so that it is more congruent with the complex nature of the technologies that are now being developed. Furthermore, in order to achieve this expansion, a shift in thinking is required from a linear or reductionist paradigm (atomistic, deterministic and dualistic) (...) to a nonlinear paradigm (holistic, chaotic and subjective). Three aspects of such a nonlinear paradigm (holism, transparency and responsiveness) enable an engineer to shift from “applying ethics” to “being ethical”. This culture change can be a basis for developing new curricula to satisfy the ABET-2000 requirements as well as for the practice of engineering in the 21st Century. (shrink)

The nuclear engineer emerged as a new form of recognised technical professional between 1940 and the early 1960s as nuclear fission, the chain reaction and their applications were explored. The institutionalization of nuclear engineering channelled into new national laboratories and corporate design offices during the decade after the war, and hurried into academic venues thereafter proved unusually dependent on government definition and support. This paper contrasts the distinct histories of the new discipline in the USA and UK (and, more (...) briefly, Canada). In the segregated and influential environments of institutional laboratories and factories, historical actors such as physicist Walter Zinn in the USA and industrial chemist Christopher Hinton in the UK proved influential in shaping the roles and perceptions of nuclear specialists. More broadly, I argue that the State-managed implantation of the new subject within further and higher education curricula was shaped strongly by distinct political and economic contexts in which secrecy, postwar prestige and differing industrial cultures were decisive factors. (shrink)

Previous research has reported that ethical values of business students are lower than those of their peers in other majors. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a self-selection bias with respect to ethical values exists among students enrolled as business majors when compared with students planning to enter the engineering profession. Engineering students are exposed to a similar technical orientation in academic curricula and also supply the market for managers.A survey instrument was administered to (...) 195 students enrolled in undergraduate business and engineering programs and a graduate business program. The research instrument measured how business and engineering students perceive their own ethical beliefs and actions and how they perceived the ethical beliefs and actions of their peers. (shrink)

In Spain before the 1990s there was no clear and explicit comprehensive training for future engineers with regard to social responsibility and social commitment. Following the Spanish university curricular reform, which began in the early 1990s, a number of optional subjects became available to students, concerning science, technology and society (STS), international cooperation, the environment and sustainability. The latest redefinition of the Spanish curriculum in line with the Bologna agreements has reduced the number of non-obligatory subjects, but could lead to (...) improving preparation for social responsibility due to the requirement that the design of curricula and the assessment of students should be based on competencies, some of which include human values and attitudes. (shrink)

A focus on standards for assessing proposals for online teaching of practical and professional ethics provides an approach to standards for raising the level of online teaching. Intellectual merit, broad impact, and integration of research and teaching featuring a high level of interactivity are key criteria for evaluation. Especially noted is research that can serve to prepare instructors, to enrich the content of courses, and to stimulate further research. Yet raising the level of online teaching hinges on developing easy access (...) and navigability in an online curriculum. (shrink)

First drafted in 2006 and currently in version 2.1, the London Charter calls for the adoption of international standards for intellectual integrity, transparency, sustainability, and access in 3D modeling for cultural heritage. While the London Charter has been in the process of revision and distribution to the heritage community, game engines have become less expensive and more approachable. Several engines offer the ability to publish easily across operating systems, mobile devices, and the web, causing a rapid expansion in their use (...) for archeological visualization. However, the very power of game engines to create and publish immersive content poses fundamental challenges to the emphasis on data-driven visualization and transparency expressed in the London Charter. These challenges should not be suppressed, since they can prove heuristically fruitful if they are explicitly recognized and explored. This potential is illustrated by a descriptive analysis of the recreation of the House of the Prince of Naples in Pompeii by an undergraduate humanities class, which concludes that the immersive effects of engine-based visualizations are as much to be found in their creation as in their “playing.” This suggests the value of democratizing the creation of game engine content for heritage visualization beyond research visualization laboratories, as a part of undergraduate curricula in the humanities. (shrink)

This paper proposes laying the groundwork for principled moral reasoning as a seminal goal of ethics interventions in higher education, and on this basis, makes a case for educating future specialists and professionals with a foundation in philosophical ethics. Identification of such a seminal goal is warranted by the progressive dissociation of scientific practice and ethical deliberation since the onset of a problematic relationship between science and ethics around the mid-19th century, and the extensive mistrust of integrating ethics in science (...) and engineering curricula beyond its “applied,” “practical,” or “professional” implications. Although calls by international scientific and educational bodies to strengthen ethics teaching in scientific education over the past quarter century have brought about a notion of combining competence in a certain field with competence in ethics, this is neither entrenched in the academic community, nor fleshed out as regards its core or instruments to realize it. The legitimate goals of ethics teaching in higher education, almost settled since the 1980s, can be subsumed under the proposed seminal goal, and the latter also would safeguard content and methods of ethics interventions against the intrusion of indoctrinative approaches. In this paper, derivation of the proposed seminal goal rests on an interpretation of the Kohlbergian cognitive-developmental conception of moral adulthood consisting in autonomous principled moral reasoning. This interpretation involves, based on Kant’s conception of the virtuous person, integrating questions about the “good life” into the domain of principled reasoning. (shrink)

The concept of similar systems arose in physics, and appears to have originated with Newton in the seventeenth century. This chapter provides a critical history of the concept of physically similar systems, the twentieth century concept into which it developed. The concept was used in the nineteenth century in various fields of engineering, theoretical physics and theoretical and experimental hydrodynamics. In 1914, it was articulated in terms of ideas developed in the eighteenth century and used in nineteenth century mathematics (...) and mechanics: equations, functions and dimensional analysis. The terminology physically similar systems was proposed for this new characterization of similar systems by the physicist Edgar Buckingham. Related work by Vaschy, Bertrand, and Riabouchinsky had appeared by then. The concept is very powerful in studying physical phenomena both theoretically and experimentally. As it is not currently part of the core curricula of STEM disciplines or philosophy of science, it is not as well known as it ought to be. (shrink)

Ethical conduct is the hallmark of excellence in engineering and scientific research, design, and practice. While undergraduate and graduate programs in these areas routinely emphasize ethical conduct, few receive formal ethics training as part of their curricula. The first purpose of this research study was to assess the relative effectiveness of ethics education in enhancing individuals’ general knowledge of the responsible conduct of research practices and their level of moral reasoning. Secondly, we examined the effects of ethics education (...) on the positive psychological outcomes of perspective-taking, moral efficacy, moral courage, and moral meaningfulness. To examine our research hypotheses, we utilized a pretest–posttest quasi-experimental design consisting of three ethics education groups (control, embedded modules, and stand-alone courses). Findings revealed that both embedded and stand alone courses were effective in enhancing participants’ perspective-taking, moral efficacy, and moral courage. Moral meaningfulness was marginally enhanced for the embedded module condition. Moral judgment and knowledge of responsible conduct of research practices were not influenced by either ethics education condition. Contrary to expectations, stand alone courses were not superior to embedded modules in influencing the positive psychological outcomes investigated. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

In recent decades, the development of sciences and technologies had a significant impact in society. This impact has been object of analysis from several standpoints, i.e., scientific, communication, historical and anthropological. Consequently, serious changes were required by the society. One of these has been the emerging relationship science in society and its foundations of applied sciences. A related foundational challenging is the educational process, which was and still is an unlimited challenge for teachers and professors: i.e., levels of understanding, (...) class='Hi'>curricula, activing critical engagement, transfer knowledge—and—skills, management, classroom and subsequently pre-service teachers need special teacher education. Taking into account Joule’s bicentenary commemoration in physics and Nature of Science teaching this paper introduces to a level of inquiring within historical and NoS approaches in the pre-service teachers, typically science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In particular, history and historiography of Joule’s physics are dealt with. (shrink)

In recent decades, the development of sciences and technologies had a significant impact in society. This impact has been object of analysis from several standpoints, i.e., scientific, communication, historical and anthropological. Consequently, serious changes were required by the society. One of these has been the emerging relationship science in society and its foundations of applied sciences. A related foundational challenging is the educational process, which was and still is an unlimited challenge for teachers and professors: i.e., levels of understanding, (...) class='Hi'>curricula, activing critical engagement, transfer knowledge—and—skills, management, classroom and subsequently pre-service teachers need special teacher education. Taking into account Joule’s bicentenary commemoration in physics and Nature of Science teaching (NoS) this paper introduces to a level of inquiring within historical and NoS approaches in the pre-service teachers, typically science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In particular, history and historiography of Joule’s physics (e.g., his arguments on electric–magnetic engine, mechanical equivalent of heat and free expansion) are dealt with. (shrink)

In order to raise awareness of the ambiguous nature of scientific-technological progress, and of the challenging problems it raises, problems which are not easily addressed by courses in a single discipline and cannot be projected onto disciplinary curricula, Technical University of Darmstadt has established three interdisciplinary study concentrations: “Technology and International Development”, “Environmental Sciences”, and “Sustainable Shaping of Technology and Science”. These three programmes seek to overcome the limitations of strictly disciplinary research and teaching by developing an integrated, problem-oriented (...) approach. For example, one course considers fundamental nuclear dilemmas and uses role-playing techniques to address a controversy in the area of nuclear security. At the same time, incorporating interdisciplinary teaching into a university that is organized around mono- or multi-disciplinary faculties also poses a number of challenges. Recognition in disciplinary curricula, and appropriate organizational support and funding are examples of those challenges. It is expected that science and engineering students, empowered by such interdisciplinary study programmes, will be better prepared to act responsibly with regard to scientific and technological challenges. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Heterarchical Reflexive Conversational Teaching and Learning as a Vehicle for Ethical Engineering Curriculum Design” by Philip Baron. Upshot: To work with institutional curricula, it is necessary to adopt practices that conflict with a radical constructivist philosophy. This conflict can generate contradictions that are often left uninspected, and which are particularly hard to disentangle in a post-colonial society.

Ethics and professional conduct are vital to civil engineering undergraduate curricula. Many programs struggle to ensure that students are given an adequate exposure to and appreciation of ethical and professional conduct issues. This paper describes a two-part ethics/professionalism project used in a senior-level course taught at the University of Arkansas. Initially, students scruitinize ethical canons and standards of professional conduct published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), and prepare (...) an essay concerning the applicability of these standards. The second part of the project builds on the first: based on the opinion(s) generated in Part 1, students are asked to develop a set of canons or standards targeted specifically to the undergraduate student, and suggest processes for implementing those standards within the department. Project objectives include: (1) exposure to nationally-recognized ethical canons and standards of professional conduct; (2) personal formulation of ethical and professional standards; (3) skill enhancement for non-technical written communications. Feedback by students prior to and after the project indicates success in meeting all objectives. The feedback also indicates that for some students, definitions and applications of ethics and professionalism are being broadened to include more than academic honesty issues. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Heterarchical Reflexive Conversational Teaching and Learning as a Vehicle for Ethical Engineering Curriculum Design” by Philip Baron. Upshot: Philip Baron focuses on changing university curricula in South Africa to enable students to succeed who do not share the culture, expectations, and experience of their teachers. With increasing need and desire for more education worldwide, his article is relevant to university education in all countries, especially in those with underserved populations. This commentary focuses (...) on the factors Baron describes which can be generalized to all university education. (shrink)

The human species' adaptive advantage is driven by its ability to build new material structures and artefacts. Engineering is the modern manifestation of this building instinct, and its advent has made the construction and use of technologies the central pattern of human life. In parallel, efficiency, the overarching narrative driving technology and related life practices, has pervaded most occupations as a value, forming a cultural backdrop that implicitly guides decisions and behaviour. We examine the process through which this backdrop (...) has developed, and argue that it emerged through the constant presence and use of built artefacts and structures, which function as manifestations of the engineering value of efficiency. The constant presence and use of built structures leads to the slow percolation of their building values into society, forming a cultural narrative that emphasises efficiency. This narrative then feeds back, to further reinforce efficiency-driven engineering processes. This loop creates a runaway building system that is highly resistant to change, even when faced with the prospect of the species going extinct. Any effort towards sustainability can be successful only when this all-pervading - and hence invisible - building loop is made explicit, and compensated for, through a counter-loop where building manifests sustainable engineering values. As a first step in revealing this structure, we characterise the emergence of the efficiency value as a cultural narrative, and analyse its wide-ranging environmental effects. We then present the design principle of 'Solving for Pattern' (SfP) as an illustrative contrast case. SfP, first articulated by Wendell Berry, focuses on interconnectedness and flourishing of all species as central design principles. We argue that these ecological principles can be extended to engineering, and can thus support the development of a robust operational-level building movement that manifests value systems oriented towards sustainability. To ground this proposal in actual practice, we outline two case studies of technology design that illustrates SfP. We also discuss three cases that illustrate SfP at a larger scale, and examine how these extend existing design approaches such as systems engineering. We conclude with a proposal to include SfP in engineering education curricula, to facilitate a faster cultural shift towards flourishing, which is required given the limited time window available to move to sustainable building practices. (shrink)

En 1741, la Royal Military Academy de Woolwich est créée par le Board of Ordnance afin d’instruire les futurs artilleurs et ingénieurs militaires. Cette instruction s’appuie dès le départ sur les mathématiques. Dans cet article, nous présentons et étudions les différents programmes sur la longue période. Les évolutions, les changements mais aussi les constances sont évalués et nous donnons les raisons de ceux-ci. L’âge de recrutement, le poids du Board of Ordnance ou encore les diverses guerres ont aussi une influence (...) importante sur la place des mathématiques dans les programmes. Par ailleurs, le peu de turn-over des professeurs entraîne aussi une inertie de l’enseignement des mathématiques. In 1741, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was created by the Board of Ordnance in order to instruct artillery officers and military engineers. From the beginning, the teaching was mainly based on mathematics. In this paper, we study different curricula and point out the long-term evolution as well as continuity in mathematical learning and we give reasons for them. The age of recruitment, the authority of the Board of Ordnance and several wars had an influence on the role of mathematics in the syllabus. Furthermore, the low turnover of professors led to inertia in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)

En 1741, la Royal Military Academy de Woolwich est créée par le Board of Ordnance afin d’instruire les futurs artilleurs et ingénieurs militaires. Cette instruction s’appuie dès le départ sur les mathématiques. Dans cet article, nous présentons et étudions les différents programmes sur la longue période (entre 1741 et les années 1860). Les évolutions, les changements mais aussi les constances sont évalués et nous donnons les raisons de ceux-ci. L’âge de recrutement, le poids du Board of Ordnance ou encore les (...) diverses guerres ont aussi une influence importante sur la place des mathématiques dans les programmes. Par ailleurs, le peu de turn-over des professeurs entraîne aussi une inertie de l’enseignement des mathématiques. In 1741, the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich was created by the Board of Ordnance in order to instruct artillery officers and military engineers. From the beginning, the teaching was mainly based on mathematics. In this paper, we study different curricula and point out the long-term (between 1741 and the 1860s) evolution as well as continuity in mathematical learning and we give reasons for them. The age of recruitment, the authority of the Board of Ordnance and several wars had an influence on the role of mathematics in the syllabus. Furthermore, the low turnover of professors led to inertia in the teaching of mathematics. (shrink)