Ethics in Engineering Education (non-ELD session)

[note: this session may be of interest to some members, though it wasn't sponsored by ELD]

Engineering Ethics & Climate Change
• Joseph Herkert, ASU
• Little written about ethics and climate change
• Gardiner 2004:
o Uncertainty = red herring: issue isn’t lack of smoking gun, it’s how we act in absence of smoking gun
o Not either/or – we have to take action to minimize climate change, AND we have to adapt to climate change that is going to happen
• Codes of Ethics as written aren’t the answer: “paramountcy clauses,” environment/sustainability, intergenerational equity (future), objectivity/truthfulness, public understanding
• Codes: written with microethics perspective, not macroethics

“Web-based Professional Ethics Modules”
• Byron Newberry (Baylor U.) and Greta Gorsuch (Texas Tech U.)
• Professional ethics and regulations vary by culture
• Includes intellectual property, plagiarism, data integrity
• Brought in an applied linguist
• MS Word statistics – writing to 9th/10th grade level = shorter sentences, limited vocabulary, embedded definitions [ex: ConceptTutor]
• Indexing software – substitute more frequently used, common words for more infrequently used, more complex words

“Lowering the Barriers to Achieve Ethics Across the Engineering Curriculum”
• Kristyn Masters (BME faculty) and Sarah Pfatteicher (Asst. Dean), UW-Madison
• Big, research-focused university
• Want to increase instructor comfort for teaching ethics
• Students and instructors more comfortable with numbers - measurable outcomes
• Sarah gets asked to give a guest lecture on ethics, to address ABET requirement
• Module in ethics problem-solving that is reusable
• Case study ethical problem, students given 20 min. quiz to “solve”
• Control group: full lecture and open-ended answer, expeimental groups: full lecture and DISORDER framework, b) short overview and DISORDER framework
• A) NIH constrains hESC strains you can use – not very good; b) Federally funded equipment can’t touch non-approved lines, c) Privately funded stem cell lines in lab next door, and they’re willing to share (?)
• Open-ended responses = 65% a) keep using crappy cells and not get anywhere with research, or b) steal cells – unsatisfactory polarized answers
• DISORDER framework (from “Doing Good and Avoiding Evil”) – mimics design process; undergrads do 6 semesters of design, so very comfortable – bringing uncomfortable topic into their comfort zone
• Framework inspired huge % of students with alternative answers, and increased # alternative answers per student; final solutions chosen flipped to alternatives; zero illegal answers
• Paradoxically, more structure = more complex and innovative answers
• Even a short overview had a big impact
• 19 instructors – positive feedback
• Kristyn – funded by CAREER award (CBET – 0547374)
• Q: What does DISORDER stand for? A: Defining the problem, and gathering the Information were the most important steps – what questions would they ask the client for a design project?

“Preparing Engineering Grad Students for Ethical Problems in Research”
• UT-Austin
• Many ethical research issues in news lately
• ORI finds research misconduct more frequently among grad students than any other group
• Online materials and 4-hour workshop
• We talk about rules of research conduct as if they’re immutable; but they arose from humanities-baesd disciplines – therefore, cognitive dissonance or unwritten rules that are discipline-specific
• Engineers are averse to quotation marks, even for direct quotes – but they’ll cite sources
• Grad student plagiarism at Ohio University – 20 years of misconduct – plagiarizing the literature reviews of other masters theses – followed the model for 20 years
• What is “plagiarism”? Different in engineering vs. humanities? How paraphrase a process description – “readers don’t want to have to look this up elsewhere.”
• Engineers don’t see “words” as their product (intellectual property) – value lab research over “book” research
• Grad students are thrown on existing research projects and expected to produce – other students have done the lit review, so they never do
• We need engineering-specific standards, and not just for the lit review: Collaborative authoring, selecting data, presenting data – “nobody is addressing this, except maybe BME faculty”
• Q: I saw a lot of instances of faculty treating grad students inappropriately
• A: My question when grad students get accused is always, “where was the faculty advisor?”

New Tools and Techniques for Information Literacy

"Using Videos to Teach the Ethical Use of Engineering Information"

• William Baer, Wichita State University
  
• Cornered by faculty, who were worried about plagiarism


• NSF was also considering mandate requiring copyright education


• Expanded the original topic to NSPE Code of Ethics, copyright, and citations


• Classroom time is limited, faculty don't want to fit something else in; "WU-torials" were a good fit (WU is the university mascot)


• Focused on educational objective, rather than entertainment


• Wanted instructors to be able to insert into Blackboard course management system


• 4 shorter videos = faster download, faculty choice


• Got permission to use an existing worksheet about plagiarism available online


• Created a test in Blackboard, could be imported into faculty grading if wanted


• U.S. citizens scored higher than non-U.S. on both pre/post; but both improved by same # of points, so bigger impact for non-U.S. citizens


• Students with ethics class did worse on pre-test (?) but better than other students on post-test

"Smart Searching: an online information fluency tutorial tailored specifically to introductory engineering students"

• Eric Resnis, Miami University


• Existing tutorials: TILT (Texas Information Literacy Tutorial), Georgetown University's, ACRL's PRIMO (peer-reviewed instructional materials online)


• Wanted an engineering-specific tutorial = "Smart Searching: Finding, Citing & Evaluating Information"


• "Smart searching" is brand, includes variety of instructional modalities


• Each module has: Introduction (learning outcomes), Tools, Techniques, Practice


• Printable handout links from within tutorial


• "A la carte" content: link to WordPress blog = timely information for students


• Tutorial "ads" - worked with technologist librarian to create content management system, output would be clickable image for website that rotate every 10 seconds


• 2007: Quiz required; created question bank, randomly generated set of 10 questions


• http://elearn.lib.muohio.edu/science/eas, /eas102

"Exploring, Reading and Writing Scientific Literature in English: The Non-Native English Speakers' Perspective"

• Adriana Popescu, Princeton U.


• Heart and soul tools, not technology tools


• How librarians can help international students integrating into American educational system


• Dictionary of American Idioms - "hit the hay," "hit the ceiling," "horse around," "smell a rat," "pay through the nose," "stick your neck out" - frustrating to communicate


• Library terminology - many don't know what "reference" or "interlibrary loan" or "stacks" mean


• Princeton: over half of engineering grad students are international; many international students in electrical engineering, economics, and chemistry


• Bottom line: solid basic knowledge of resources and services available to them


• Faculty want grad students to be able to write; seeing copy/paste problem; may not have had to write as undergrads in their countries


• Combine Writing Program, Libraries, engineering college - but students not just in engineering


• Goals: experience, understanding of technical communications, collaboration, critical thinking about research articles


• Informal: online discussion board for reactions to readings


• Formal: 1500 literature review


• Met with Writing Center to help them learn about engineering literature - taught how to search databases, helped choose classic papers, talked about scholarly communication and publishing trends, plagiarism


• Readings: 2 articles about international students (why less likely to take advantage of resources/services, interact mostly with people of same language/culture)


• Asked them how they keep up with their field, how do you get from a citation to finding the paper? (Google)


• Assignment: find out where your field conducts its business


• Caught their attention: RSS feeds - you can get news from your country every da; Interviews - what were the latest papers published by your interviewers?

"Flexible Info Lit Strategies for Engineering Design in EPICS"

• Lisa Dunn, Colorado School of Mines


• Our EPICS (Engineering Practices Introductory Course Sequence) doesn't relate to other campuses


• Library has formal teaching session for freshman EPICS course; informal support for rest


• Information overload: how process and retain?


• Projects with real clients; change every semester; information requirements vary


• Variety of adjunct faculty - don't know what library can do


• Smaller lecture over time, larger team activity component


• Set up space with students facing each other, using laptops


• Modeled after real world: each person gets a different piece of the project, then communicates with the others


• Marketing - awareness (capturing information from your user - not a dialogue) + change + response (demonstrating the benefit) - Pat Wagner, Pattern Research, "Marketing As If Your Library Depended on It"


• Generally, instructors noticed enhanced team environment, time on task, finding relevant information


• Instructors asked us to do things that we were already doing - communication problem


• Different instructors wanted different things