Engineering ethics and accreditation

Abstract

The teaching of ethics in engineering poses challenges to teachers as well as to accreditors who need to identify and assess the ethical content of the engineering curriculum. If a stand-alone module on ethics is offered, the task might appear easy; however, the introduction of ethics within an engineering degree should not be constrained to a single module, but rather considered in relation to the whole curriculum. Consequently, the accreditors face a harder task: questions such as, "how should the modules been looked at?", "how should the assessment of ethics been carried out?" are just examples clarifying the difficulty. Since the accreditation is based on learning outcomes, additional challenges arise when devising the questions that the accreditors ask the students. The paper concentrates mainly on the accreditation process; the teaching and assessment of the ethical provision is not considered in detail. A checklist that could be used as a practical tool during accreditation visits is introduced as a possible guide. Although mainly based on the experience drawn from Chemical Engineering in the UK, the results are quite general and could be translated and applied to the majority of engineering curricula worldwide. © 2013 The Institution of Chemical Engineers.