Impact of the Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshop
on MNE 497: Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project, UMass DartmouthIntroduction
Application to MNE 497
MNE 497 Senior Design Project Outline
Ethics Case Study
AssessmentFrom July 30 through August 6, 2002, I attended the Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC) workshop at the Illinois Institute of Technology. During this workshop Ilearned many useful techniques in bringing ethics concepts and examples into the engineering courses that I teach at UMass Dartmouth. This report outlines how I have incorporated the information, skills, and resources presented at the workshop into my Senior Design class (NINE 497: Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project I) during Fall 2002. For the first time Mechanical Engineering Senior Design was taught as a two-semester sequence, so a syllabus needed to be generated from scratch. During the Fall semester, the students pick their projects and begin their design work. Also during the Fall, the students are to have at least 5 hours of engineering ethics training which satisfies in part the ABET ethics requirement. Earlier in the curriculum, through several engineering courses, the students were introduced to ethical concepts such as different philosophies and application to safety, but practical ethical decision-making is reserved for the Senior Design course. This works well as the ethical decision-making process parallels the engineering design process
There are several documents included with this report. The first is a course syllabus that was handed out to the students during the first class. This was the semester as planned. The second document is a post-mortem syllabus where I have included short statements for each day to show what actually happened in class that day. This will be helpful in reviewing not only the success of the ethics components of this course, but also in reviewing the course as a whole. The third is a handout on definitions of morality ethics and law adapted from the EAC Workshop. The forth is the 7-Step Guide to ethical decision-making, also from the EAC workshop. The fifth is a copy of the 1-hour exam given.
Application to MNE 497: Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project I
To introduce the potential complexity of ethical situations, I used the video "Testing the Water... and Ethics " that was produced by the Institute for Professional Practice. The video shows a situation where a young engineer is placed in the difficult position of having to make an ethical decision of whether to include certain data in a report, knowing that the data is in excess of that which was required. The difficulty is that the data in question could significantly change the conclusions of the report. Omission of the data could be construed as purposeful deception, yet inclusion of the data would be in conflict with the clients needs and requests. 1 showed the video to the point where the ethical conflict is defined. Then the video was stopped, and a short discussion ensued about the difficult situation of the young engineer. From this, the students became away that even though knowing right from wrong is often easy, making an ethical decision is often not easy at all. This led to definitions of morality, ethics, and law, and the introduction of the NSPE Code of Ethics as a powerful tool in helping make ethical decision. The students were then assigned as a homework problem to be completed in teams: use the NSPE Code of Ethics to determine what the young engineer should do.
In the subsequent class, when the assignment was due, the first part of the discussion centered on the process they went through with their teammates in determining what course of action the young engineer should take. This led to the 7-Step Guide to Ethical Decision-Making, which includes 7 tests that could be used to evaluate potential choices. The guide and the tests were presented in the EAC Workshop. After this discussion, the remainder of the "Testing the Water ....and Ethics" video was shown to demonstrate the process by which the young engineer went about resolving his dilemma. The students were then assigned to apply the tests in the 7-Step Guide to their solution and to the solution presented in the video. Using the video and working through the ethical decision making process in this way was very effective in demonstrating that ethics is an important aspect of being an engineer. It was also helpful in showing that, as with the design process, there are often multiple good ethical solutions.
The remainder of the class lectures was devoted to discussing case studies. Some of these I had used in the previous year, accessed from the on-line ethics website. However, these discussions were more productive because of the framework for approaching ethical decisions that I learned at the EAC Workshop. 1 concluded the ethics portion of the class with the "59-story Crisis", a video of a lecture given by William LeMessieur on the Citicorp Tower. I had used this case study previously, but it served the course well in bringing closure to the ethics component. In summary, the ethics component is constructed as follows:
Introduce that ethics is not easy, Introduce tools to help in ethical decision-making, Show what happens when you do it wrong (Ford Pinto, Challenger), Discuss some real-world situations ("Testing the water..." video, other case studies), Show what happens when you do it right (Citicorp Tower), Give exam that asks students to apply the 7-Step Guide and the NSPE code of ethics to a new case study.
In addition to the above, I am in communication with the instructor of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Senior Design course. As ethics is a component of that course as well, I gave him some of the materials from the EAC workshop and a copy of my syllabus. We have discussed ways to teach ethics in senior design, and now that the courses of these two departments are more parallel, perhaps the engineering ethics components can be taught together.
MNE 497 Senior Design Project Outline
Co-requisite: ME 491 Advanced Machine DesignFall 2002 Mondays and Wednesdays 2:00 - 2:50, 11-118
Text: Tools and Tactics of Design by Dominick, Demel, et.al. John Wiley and Sons, 2001.
Objectives
There are several objectives of this course. One is for the students to apply the engineering knowledge gained in various courses to the synthesis, analysis, and design of a system in a field of interest selected by the student. Another is for the students to further develop their technical communication skills through both written and verbal means. A third is for students to learn basic management skills such as budgeting, scheduling, and teamwork. A fourth is for the students to understand the importance and complexity of ethics in the field of engineering.Design Project
Students will form teams of 2-3 people, select a project, and select a faculty supervisor. The design project should be an actual problem from industry or one representative thereof. Approval of the project rests solely with Prof DiMassa. The key restrictions are that the project must be something related to DESIGN and that the project is of the proper scope for the time available, (i.e., neither too big, nor too small). Students are expected to writeA preliminary project proposal including project definition, background, and budget;
A project proposal, including an expanded project definition, a detailed plan of attack, a schedule for
BOTH semesters, and a budget;
An end-of-term status report indicating progress to date and any necessary changes to the material
presented in the proposal
All reports must be computer generated and be of professional standard.Due dates for the reports are as follows:
Preliminary Proposal: Monday October 21, 2002
Proposal: Monday November 4, 2002
Status Report: Friday December 13, 2002Course outline
An approximate syllabus is given below.W Sept. 4
Course orientation and expectations Micro-design projectM Sept. 9
Micro-design project presentationsW Sept. 11
Design ProcessM Sept. 16
The stick
Testing the water video
Code of ethics: ASME, NSPE
HW: use the code of ethics to help Jim decide what to do
DO NOT work aloneW Sept. 18
Ethical decision-making process
A day in the life of an engineer.
Due: code applied to testing the waterM Sept. 23
Case Study: Catalysts
Due:characteristics of a good engineerW Sept. 25
Proposals
Example of RFP and proposals for OES
HW: Review the proposalsM Sept. 30
Proposals 2
Working agreements
Due: Proposal reviewW Oct. 2
Case Study: TBD
HW: apply the code to case study
Due: Project defnition, team members, advisorM Oct. 7
Getting started with design projects: formulating the problem statement,
research, data gathering
HW: create a working agreement for your design team
Due: apply code to case studyW Oct 9
Scheduling, Budgeting, Gantt Charts
Due: Working agreementM Oct 14
NO CLASS, COLUMBUS DAYW Oct 16
Case Study: Price is right?M Oct 21
Proposals 3: expectations of your project proposal
Introduction to The 59-story Crisis
HW: read New Yorker article
Due: Preliminary Proposal with outline of proposal, detailed problem statement,
List of issues, outline of approach and budgetT Oct 22
LIBRARY BROWSING AREA, 5:00 PM, video: "The 59-story crisis"W Oct 23
Case Study: The 59-story CrisisM Oct 28
Ethics ExamW Oct 30
Guest Speaker, TBDM Nov 4
Career Resources
Video: "The way things go"
Due: SIGNED ProposalsW Nov 6
Review Ethics Exam
Due: Proposal ReviewsT Nov 12
Discussion of Proposals (Note: Class meets on Tuesday due to Veterans Day holiday,
follow Monday Schedule)W Nov 13
Last Class, evaluationsF Dec 13
Due: Status Report
After Nov 15, there will be no classes. Students will instead meet with their project advisors on a weekly basis until the end of the semester.Grading
The students will be graded on the following:Ethics Exam:15%
Homework:10%
Preliminary Proposal: 10%
Final Proposal: 35%
Class Participation: 5%
Project Advisor Assessment: 25% (Assigned based on progress after proposals submitted.)If a student is caught cheating or plagiarizing on any assignment or exam, the instructor has the right to issue a 0 (zero) for that entire assignment or exam. Late assignments will not be accepted. Missed exams without a valid excuse accompanied by appropriate documentation (medical report, police report etc...) will result in a grade of zero. The instructor reserves the right to award a grade higher than that earned according to the above grading policy; awarding such a grade is wholly and completely at the discretion of the instructor. Students in the same team will not necessarily receive the same grade.
Teaching Engineering Ethics
A Case Study Approach, edited by Michael Pritchard. from the
Center For the Study of Ethics in Society, Western Michigan
University.Dan Dorset had been looking forward to this trip for weeks. Once he was assigned to help Rancott install its equipment for Boulding, Inc., he arranged his vacation at a nearby ski resort. The installation would be completed on the 12th, and his vacation would begin on the 13th--a full week of skiing with three of his old college buddies.
Unfortunately, not all of Rancott's equipment arrived on time. Eight of the ten identical units were installed by mid-morning on the 12th. Even if the remaining two units had arrived that moming, it would have taken another fill day to install them. However, Dan was informed that it might take as long as two more days for the units to arrive.
"Terrific," Dan sighed, "there goes my vacation--and all the money I put down for the condo."
"No problem," replied Boulding engineer, Jerry Taft. Jerry had worked side-by-side with Dan as each of the first eight units was installed. "1 can handle this for you. We did the first eight together. It's silly for you to have to hang around and blow your vacation." Jerry knew why Rancott had sent Dan to supervise the installation of his firm's new equipment. Rancott's equipment had to be properly installed in order to avoid risking serious injuries to those who use the equipment. For years Rancott trusted its clients to follow the carefully stated directions for installation. But several recent accidents were directly traceable to failure to follow proper installation procedures. It was now Rancott's policy to send one of its engineers to supervise all installations.
Dan was confident that Jerry was as fully capable as he to supervise the installation of the remaining two units. What should Dan do?
Apply the 7-step guide to ethical decision-making and the NSPE Code of Ethics to this case. List at least 4 options that Dan has. Based on the evaluation tests, indicate which of the options you think is best and why.
Overall, my assessment of the EAC workshop was that it was tremendously useful in helping me develop materials for teaching practical engineering ethics. As can be seen from the above I used materials directly from the workshop in the course.
Overall, I thought that the ethics component of the senior design course was much more applied, practical, realistic, and real-world than the way 1 had taught it previously. Student reaction to the first portion of the "Testing the Water..." video was particularly telling. The body language said, "That's tough! I don't know how to handle that." Conversely, in surveys the students were still more interested in learning how to write proposals and get projects started than in discussing ethics. However, that is to be expected as the larger portion of the course is dedicated to the actual design projects they will undertake. Further, the students are used to problems having a single "black and white" answer with a surefire procedure to attack the problem. In the real world this is just not so. They learn that first with the ethics component, and then with their projects.