Collecting Policy

The Codes of Ethics Collection of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions collects codes of ethics, codes of conduct, and ethical guidelines from the following entities.

• Academic organizations 
•  Businesses 
•  Industry associations 
•  Fraternal organizations 
•  Government organizations 
•  Non-profit organizations 
•  Professional associations

Documents and guidelines included in the collection must be written by an established professional association, fraternal club, business, etc., and be the official policy of that organization. In some circumstances, we will include model codes of ethics that have been developed through a research project or workshop. However, a footnote will be attached to these codes clearly explaining how they were developed, and who is responsible for the codes’ content. For example, in 2010 we received permission to include the Code of Ethics for Robotic Engineers in our collection, a code that was developed by a team of undergraduate students from Wooster Polytechnic Institute’s Electrical and Computer Engineering and Robotics Engineering Department.

If you know of a code that we should have in our collection, please contact us with your comments and suggestions.

Copyright Policy

In 1998, when we began posting codes of ethics online, we decided that instead of only providing links to codes of ethics, we would attempt to post the full text of codes on our site. As some scholars are interested in studying the development of codes over time, this approach has proven to be extremely valuable. We now have a number of codes of ethics that are unavailable anywhere else on the Internet.

To make sure we comply with the wishes of the authors of these codes, we always ask permission to reprint each code before it is posted in this collection. A copy of the letter or email requesting copyright permission to repost a code of ethics is shown below.

Dear Colleague,

We are writing to request copyright permission to include your organization’s code of ethics in our online collection at the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

The first phase of this online project dates back to 1996 when the National Science Foundation gave our Center a grant to put our extensive collection of codes of ethics online. The Codes of Ethics Online collection is currently available at http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/.

As we update and expand the collection, we seek permission from organizations for recent versions of their codes of ethics. Including all editions of codes that are available is especially useful so that the development of codes over time may be studied. We link to your organization’s homepage so users may learn more about your organization. Of course, copyright by your organization is always retained.

Interest among teachers, students, scholars and practitioners in the study of codes of ethics has grown exponentially in the last few years. We hope that you will allow us to include your code in our online collection so that interested persons all over the world can learn more about your organization and its ethical standards.

Please complete the brief form attached to this email, and send it along with a hard copy of any code of ethics that you may have. If you prefer to reply electronically, please send permissions and any codes of ethics as attachments to my attention at cseplibrary@iit.edu.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Kelly Laas

Librarian

Using the Codes

If you are interested in reprinting any of the codes in our collection, please contact the authoring organization or their website to verify if a more recent or updated code of ethics is available. CSEP does not hold copyright on any of the codes of ethics in our collection. Any permission to use the codes must be sought from the individual organizations directly. However, if you run into problems finding the correct person to contact, please let us know.