Elsevier’s James Harper has just written a valuable new guidance article for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit on Why information literacy is an ethical issue in engineering. We got together with him to discuss this further.

 

James, where did your passion for this issue originate and how can the resources available for information literacy be put to use both by faculty and students?  

We live in a time marked by an unprecedented deluge of information, where distinguishing reliable and valuable content has become increasingly difficult. My concern was to help engineering educators meet the critical challenge of fostering ethical behaviour in their students in this complex world. Students are in real need of an ethical compass to navigate this information overload, and the digital landscape in particular. They need to acquire what we call ‘information and digital literacy’, specifically, learning how to research, select and critically assess reliable data. This is both a skill and a practice.  

For students, how does this skill relate to the engineering workplace? 

From observing professional engineers, it’s clear they require comprehensive insights and data to resolve problems, complete projects, and foster innovation. This necessitates extensive research, encompassing case studies, standards, best practices, and examples to validate or refute their strategies. Engineering is a profession deeply rooted in the analysis of failures in order to prevent avoidable mistakes. As a result, critical and unbiased thinking is essential and all the more so in the current state of the information landscape. This is something Knovel specifically strives to improve for the communities we serve. 

Knovel – a reference platform I’ve significantly contributed to – was initially built for practising engineers. Our early realisation was that the biggest obstacle for engineers in accessing the best available information wasn’t a lack of resources, but barriers such as insufficient digitalisation, technological hurdles, and ambiguous usage rights. Nowadays, the challenge has evolved: there’s an overload of online information, emerging yet unreliable sources like certain chatbots, and a persistently fragmented information landscape.  

How is Knovel used in engineering education? Can you share some insights on how to make the most of it? 

Knovel is distinguished by its extensive network of over 165 content partners worldwide, offering a breadth of trusted perspectives to meet the needs of a range of engineering information challenges. It’s an invaluable tool for students, especially those in project-based learning programs during their Undergraduate and Master’s studies. These students are on the cusp of facing real-world engineering challenges, and Knovel exposes them to the information practices of professional engineers. 

The platform is adept at introducing students to the research methodologies and information sources that a practising engineer would utilise. It helps them understand how professionals in their field gather insights, evaluate information, and engage in the creative process of problem-solving. While Knovel includes accessible introductory content, it progressively delves into more advanced topics, helping students grasp the complexities of decision-making in engineering. This approach makes Knovel an ideal companion for students transitioning from academic study to professional engineering practice. 

How is the tool used by educators? 

For educators, the tool offers support starting in the foundational years of teaching, covering all aspects of project-based learning and beyond. It is also an efficient way for faculty to remain up-to-date with the latest information and data on key issues. Ultimately, it is educators who have the challenge of guiding students towards reputable, suitable, traceable information. In doing so, educators are helping students to understand that where they gather information, and how they use it, is in itself an ethical issue. 

To learn more about the competence of information literacy check out our guidance article, Why information literacy is an ethical issue in engineering.

Knovel for Higher Education is an Elsevier product. As a publisher-neutral platform, Knovel helps engineering students explore foundational literature with interactive tools and data. 

46% of EPC members already have access to Knovel. To brainstorm how you can make the best use of Knovel in your classroom, please contact: Susan Watson, susan.watson@elsevier.com.  

Faculty and students can check their access to Knovel using their university email address at the following link: Account Verification – Knovel

Get Knovel to accelerate R&D, validate designs and prepare technical professionals. Innovate in record time with multidisciplinary knowledge you can trust: Knovel: Engineering innovation in record time

 

This blog is also available here.

Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are solely that of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of the Engineering Professors’ Council or the Toolkit sponsors and supporters.

Our original Engineering Ethics Toolkit case study, Developing a school chatbot for student support services, addresses the ethical issues of bias, social responsibility, risk and privacy, and examines situations that professional engineers need to consider, such as informed consent, public health and safety, conflicts with leadership, and legal implications.

This case study involves the employees of a small software start-up that is creating a customised student support chatbot for a Sixth Form college. The employees come from different backgrounds and have different perspectives on the motivations behind their work, which leads to some interpersonal conflict. The team must also identify the ethical issues and competing values that arise in the course of developing their algorithm.

Now, as well as the activities within the original case study, we have provided an expansion on one of the activities in the form of a Case enhancement: stakeholder mapping to elicit value assumptions and motivations.

Case enhancement author, Karin Rudolph of Collective Intelligence, had this to say about her contribution: “I’m pleased to have contributed the case enhancement for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit. Now it is more important than ever that engineers engage in discussions about the ethical consequences of technology and learn how to apply ethical thinking to real-life products. The toolkit offers free access to an array of helpful resources.”

We’ve provided this, and other case studies and case enhancements for you to use and adapt in your teaching. If you’re new to ethics, we have a growing library of guidance articles available to support you, and an interactive Ethics Explorer to get you started.

If you would like to give feedback on this or any other Engineering Ethics resource, or submit your own content, you can do so here. You can join our Ethics Ambassadors community here.

What are the top ethical issues in engineering today, and how can you incorporate these in your teaching?

In our Engineering Ethics workshop at the 2023 SEFI Conference at TU Dublin, we asked participants what they felt were the top ethical issues in engineering today. This word cloud captured their responses, and the results reveal concerns ranging from AI and sustainability to business and policy and beyond.

When incorporating ethics into a lesson or module, educators might want to find teaching resources that address a topic that’s recently been in the news or something of particular relevance to a group of students or to a project brief. But how can this be done efficiently when there are now so many teaching materials available in our Toolkits?

Fortunately, sifting through available resources in the Ethics Toolkit is now easier than ever, with the release of the new Toolkit search function. The Toolkit search allows users to:

  • Choose from a list of suggested keyword tags;
  • Search by multiple keyword tags or their own search terms;
  • Refine the search results by one of more of the following filters: engineering discipline; educational level; type of content.

It even pulls resources from across different toolkits, if so desired.

Not only will this help you discover and find materials that are right for your educational context, but the search function could even become a teaching tool in itself. For instance, you could poll students with the same question we used in the SEFI Workshop, asking them what they think the top ethical issues are in engineering today, and then design (or co-design) a lesson or activity based on their responses and supported by resources in the Toolkit. If you don’t find resources for a particular issue, that could be a great learning opportunity to0 – why might these topics not be addressed? Of course, you can always create a resource that fills a gap and submit it to be a part of the Toolkit: we would love to see a student-developed case study or activity.

Let us know how you have used the Toolkit search function, and if there are ways we could improve it. Happy searching!

This post is also available here.

If you are not already a member of the Ethics Ambassadors community, please complete the membership application form in addition to the reviewer application form.

The Engineering Ethics Toolkit is a suite of interactive resources, guidance and teaching materials that enables educators to easily introduce ethics into the education of every engineer.

We’re always pleased to see the #EngineeringEthicsToolkit featured in news articles, blogs, podcasts etc., and we’ll be keeping track of those mentions here.

Sarah Jayne Hitt talks to Neil Cooke and Natalie Wint about the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit

Educating the educators – why the UK’s engineering teachers need reskilling too 

A look at engineering ethics education and research in 2023

Ethics workshop

Using the Engineering Ethics Toolkit in your teaching

Engineering ethics in the spotlight

Seen us in the news? Let us know!

Want to feature us? Get in touch for press kits, interviews etc.

 

This post is also available here.

“Educators who integrate ethics into their activities and modules may be unsure how to assess student learning in this area. Yet assessment of ethics learning is not only crucial for evaluating learning, but also for identifying ways to improve the teaching of ethics within engineering education.”

If you’re wondering where to start with your assessment of ethics learning, our Engineering Ethics Toolkit article Methods for assessing and evaluating ethics learning in engineering education offers some ideas.

This article should be read by educators at all levels in higher education who wish to integrate ethics into the engineering and design curriculum, or into module design and learning activities.

We have a growing library of guidance articles available to support you as you expand your understanding of engineering ethics, and begin to embed it within the curriculum, and an interactive Ethics Explorer to get you started. We also have a library of case studies, for you to use and adapt in your teaching.

If you would like to give feedback on this or any other Engineering Ethics resource, or submit your own content, you can do so here. We also have a newly created community of practice that you can join, where we hope that educators will support each other, and share their success stories of teaching engineering ethics. You can join our Ethics Ambassadors community here.

For both the Engineering Ethics and Sustainability toolkits, the strategy for promotion and dissemination will focus on 3 priorities:

a.     Build awareness of the toolkit by highlighting the need/problem and the resource/solution;  

b.     Build understanding and engagement by helping educators to know and use the toolkit; 

c.     Motivate action by getting others to advocate for and champion the toolkits, and to submit further resources. 

We can break this down into the following outputs and activities for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit:

Who/What/When

Output or activity

Notes 
  • Privately commissioned
  • Impact study.

 
  • This study will inform the further enhancement of the Ethics Toolkit, determining where attention should be prioritised, and will influence the ongoing development of the Sustainability Toolkit.
  • Run a dedicated workshop session (~half day).
  • This workshop will be developed/delivered in partnership with other Toolkit contributors.
  • Funding would be required to support travel. 
  • SEFI Ethics SIG (Special Interest Group)
  • Collaborate on a webinar workshop series which would feature an Ethics Toolkit resource per session, encouraging attendees to become familiar with, use, and then report back on integrating the resource.
  • EPC would work in collaboration with Ambassador event lead/co-chairs and Toolkit contributors to develop/deliver these.
  • Present a paper on the impact of the Ethics Toolkit (via data/testimonials). 
  • Funding would be required to support travel. 
  • Our proposal was accepted after a very competitive submission process and ASEE is the world’s largest conference of engineering educators with a very strong Ethics subcommittee.
  • Advance HE
  • PEIs
  • Sponsorship
  • Continuing professional development. 
  • Feedback from users of the Ethics toolkit suggests a demand for an ongoing programme of professional development opportunities for both toolkits, potentially with sponsorship, or in partnership with leading organisations in the CPD field for the HE sector. This is unlikely to be fully realised in a year, but a trial programme would be developed and piloted.
  • Educators and other stakeholders need to understand where and how changes can be made in the curriculum to embed ethics and sustainability, so that they can fully engage with the toolkit resources and delivering system change.
  • PEIs accreditation committees
  • Integration with accreditation.
  • Reach out to the accreditation committees of the PEIs in order to establish what they need to help them better understand our resources and how they relate to the accreditation process of HEI courses.   
  • The toolkits need to address the needs of accreditors as well as educators.
  • Through the accreditation committees of the PEIs a framework will be established to help them better understand the toolkit resources and how they relate to the accreditation process of HEI courses.
  • This could even involve developing training modules or short courses for accrediting personnel. 
  • Ethics Ambassadors
  • Toolkit contributors
  • Develop, produce and publish further Toolkit content.
  • Continued support for systems of expanding the toolkits, including commissioning, creating and compiling resources, a network of reviewers, and a fast-track process from review to publication of content.

New content to be informed by:

  • RAEng’s Ethics report (see below).
  • Requests from academics.
  • Pitches from contributors.
  • Ethics Ambassadors
  • Expand, strengthen and publicise the community.
  • Continued support and guidance for the Ethics Ambassadors community and extension into a Sustainability Ambassadors community to ensure the toolkits become an ongoing, regular component of engineering teaching and highlighting excellence in integrating ethics and sustainability.
  • EPC leads
  • Ethics Ambassadors leads
  • Toolkit contributors
  • Run a rewards and awards scheme for Toolkit contributors.
  • E-badges for contributors, that can be used on their email, website and other communications.
  • Awards for highest quality content and most popular content.
  • Award to help an educator/institution embed ethics in a module or course.
  • Media
  • HEIs
  • PEIs
  • Other media and institutions
  • Continue to promote and disseminate the Toolkit. 
  •  Expand into unexplored areas such as engineering podcasts/social media/student unions etc.
  • HEIs and engineering staff
  • PEIs
  • Other interested parties
  • Workshops (in person).
  • A roadshow (taking workshops to various HEIs or other locations).
  • This will either be run by the EPC and Ethics Ambassadors, or via a CPD provider.
  • EPC
  • Ethics Ambassadors
  • HEIs
  • PEIs
  • Other interested parties
  • A self-study module.
  • Whereas the Ethics Explorer provides various routes to learning, this will be a number of linear modules, available online.
  • This will either be devised and run by the EPC and Ethics Ambassadors, or via a CPD provider.
  • External provider

 

 

 
  • Build a portal.
  • To maximise impact and effect change globally, the toolkit materials should not be confined to the EPC website. While this may be the ideal place for this content to reach UK engineering academics, a wider audience in other stages of education and internationally can be reached by developing a bespoke portal allowing the toolkits to reside and be updated on the EPC website, through an API on other sites (including RAEng’s own), and on a dedicated URL such as “engineeringsustainability” which would rank more highly on internet searches.
  • This is unlikely to be realised within a year, but funding is needed until the next phase of Siemens support is likely to be available in Q3 of 2024.
  • Siemens may also be able to provide technical support in kind.

The Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2023 Ethics in the Engineering Profession report key findings and recommendations mapped to the Engineering Ethics Toolkit outputs and future activities
Key findings or recommendations Output or activity Notes 
  • Key Finding 1: “…one-third of engineers and technicians report that the work they undertake makes them feel ethically compromised.“ 
  • Key Finding 2: “There is evidence many engineers and technicians feel dissuaded from raising concerns in the workplace. …More than one-third of engineers and technicians report that the culture in their organisations discourages raising bad news…”
  • Recommendation 3: “Clearer guidance on how to raise concerns…[is] needed.”

 
  • Guidance article: How workplace culture affects ethics and the practice of acting ethically.  
  • How to raise ethical concerns in the workplace. 

Explicit guidance on: 

  • Good practice in raising or addressing concerns; 
  • Whistleblowing: your duties and your rights; 
  • The human challenge of raising concerns: the Bystander effect/diffusion of responsibility/lack of experience or confidence/fear of reprisal. 
  • Whilst some of our current case studies allude to this, it would be useful to have stronger and more explicit guidance.  
  • Guidance for educators, handouts for learners, on good practice for raising concerns if they feel ethically compromised.
  • Assemble a page of external resources on whistleblowing, starting with engc.org.uk/whistleblowing to create a short guide. 
  • Key Finding 4: “There is a greater gap between the relevance and preparedness scores engineering firms ascribe to risks in their supply chain. The growing importance of human rights was recognised by many companies in interviews but did not appear in the top 10 ethical risk areas in terms of relevance.”  
  • Guidance on addressing issues that are seen as less important. 
  • A case study on supply chain that overlaps with the Sustainability Toolkit. 
  •  A classroom activity examining which ethical issues are seen as more or less important and why. (Similar to the activity used at our SEFI workshop.) 
  • Key Finding 5: “Professional engineering institutions are beginning to explore ethical issues, but often in a piecemeal and unsystematic way.” 
  • Key Finding 6: “…the professional institutions are not an effective channel for communications on ethics to engineers and engineering technicians, or the broader UK engineering community. Only a minority of PEI members and registrants engage with their professional institutions in a meaningful way after registration. There are also an estimated three million individuals working in engineering roles in the UK who have no affiliation with any professional engineering body.”
  • Recommendation 4: “Create and support links between PEIs and employers”  
  • Engagement with PEIs. 
  • Resource pack aimed at PEIs. 
  • Training for the accreditors that answer to the PEIs who go out to evaluate HE programmes. 
  • Resource pack aimed at employers. 
  • Explore CPD and sponsorship/partnership opportunities. 
  • Key Finding 6: “Sizeable numbers also report that they are asked to take unacceptable shortcuts (35%) and accept situations they would characterise as professional or ethical misconduct (40%).”  
  • Diversity, equity & inclusion: “A number of interviewees commented on matters of neurodiversity and colleagues on the autistic spectrum.”  
  • Assemble a page of external resources relating to a breach of a code of ethics/conduct. 
  • Ask educators what resources they use, and what have they already created, and link to it (or encourage them to submit to toolkit if their own resources are appropriate and open source). 
  • Tie in with neurodiversity work.
  • PEIs’ views on ethics in the profession: Key findings: “Modern slavery & human rights were not on the radar of most PEIs, with a particularly low perceived importance rating for members and employers.“
  • Specific guidance on teaching/discussing modern slavery and human rights within engineering.  
  • Assuming that educators might not have a deep enough understanding of the issues that our case studies address, produce a bullet point guide, with relevant internal and external links.  
  • Recommendation 1: “training and engagement to build awareness of and alignment with the Statement of Ethical Principles… throughout the engineering sector as a whole.“  
  • Guidance article. Deconstruct and examine the SoEP; suggest discussions and activities for teaching it; link to case studies that specifically reference it (Engineers and Public Protest, and others).  

 
  • Recommendation 1: “Partner with firms to promote the principles amongst their engineering workforce in order to reach those who are not professionally registered. Consider developing training modules that can be delivered within firms or other membership organisations covering the principles of ethics for an engineer.”
  • Recommendation 2: “Promote and develop ethics-related continuing professional development (CPD).” 
  • Engagement with PEIs. 
  • Resource pack aimed at PEIs. 
  • Resource pack aimed at employers including guidance on how they might use our resources to train staff. 
  • Resource pack aimed at individual engineers (those not professionally registered) including guidance on ‘how this is relevant to you/how you can use this resource’. 
  • Explore CPD and sponsorship/partnership opportunities.  
  • Recommendation 7: “Ensure all ethics programmes consider how to support SME engineering firms.”
  • Case studies dealing with SMEs falling behind in ethics/compromising values? 
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