Use this form to submit a case study to the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit.

You can download our contribution guidelines here. Further information can be found on our Get involved page.

Note: If you worked with co-authors, they must complete this form.

For example Sarah Jayne Hitt, Ph.D. SFHEA (NMITE, Edinburgh Napier University) or Professor Sarah Hitt (NMITE)
This will be added to our Contributors page at https://epc.ac.uk/resources/toolkit/ethics-toolkit/contributors/
Click or drag a file to this area to upload.
This will be added to our Contributors page at https://epc.ac.uk/resources/toolkit/ethics-toolkit/contributors/ alongside your bio.
Try to sum up in one line what the case study is about. For example: 'Maintenance of an offshore wind farm' or 'Dealing with contracts or subcontracts with potential slave or forced labour'.
Note: We might change the title of your case study for marketing purposes.
Please note: you will be able to select more specific disciplines when you choose Keywords.
Keywords are the words and phrases associated with your case study that a user might search under when looking for this type of content. This is where you can add more specific engineering disciplines (see previous question), as well as keywords that focus on case study content, situation, materials, problems, solutions, and so on.
Note: These are the ethical issues that the dilemma(s) within your case study reveals.
Note: These reflect the professional situations that characters within your case study have to engage with.
Please select a level. A Beginner-level case is aimed at learners who have not had much experience in engaging with complex ethical topics, and usually focuses on only one or two dimensions of a dilemma. An Advanced-level case is aimed at learners who have had previous practice in engaging with ethical situations, and often addresses multiple levels of complexity. An Intermediate case is somewhere in between.
Note: This is the main outcome that you hope learners will gain from engaging with your case study.
Please consider the specific opportunities for learning and engagement that your case study offers, and select accordingly.
Please consider the specific opportunities for teaching and engagement that your case study offers, and select accordingly.
Please select the type of assessment criteria or suggestions that you have included within your case study.
Click or drag files to this area to upload. You can upload up to 20 files.
We need these to be uploaded separately, as we will be embedding them in a web page. Please ensure that they are of adequate resolution and size; that you have permission to use them; and that you have added any permissions, sources, credits or other details for them in the body of the case study document that you are submitting.
Click or drag a file to this area to upload.
Please do a final check before uploading!
If you are unsure, please check permissions and rights before submitting.
For more details, please see: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
The EPC will engage in an editorial process, and we are happy to suggest and discuss changes. We will give you the opportunity to approve the final version of this resource prior to publication.
Welcome to the Activities pages of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit, produced in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering. Click here for the toolkit homepage.

Here you will find case enhancements, as well as other learning and teaching activities.

Case enhancements are teaching materials and resources that help educators to employ the ethics case studies and lead the activities referenced within them. Enhancements provide crucial guidance for those who may be teaching ethics-related material for the first time, or who are looking for new and different ways to integrate ethics into their teaching. They may take the form of discussion prompts, debate or role play scripts, technical content related to the ethical dilemma, worksheets, slides, or other similar materials.

 

Case enhancements:

 

Other resources & activities: 

 

Get involved: These case enhancements were created as part of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit that is intended to evolve and grow over time. Further content will be added or linked to in due course. We are actively inviting experts to submit case enhancements for review and possible inclusion in this toolkit. For more information, see our Get involved page.

What responsibilities do engineers have to fellow employees, the community, and the environment? Is there a difference between the environment locally and globally? Should environmental concerns outweigh others?

These are some of the questions posed in our Engineering Ethics Toolkit case study Water wars: managing competing water rights.

This case involves a situation where environmental damage may be occurring despite the mechanism causing this damage being permissible by law. It examines the ethical issues of sustainability, respect for the environment, risk, societal impact, and future generations, and explores professional situations such as law, policy, communication, and integrity.

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, based on the activity of role-playing a meeting, with students playing different characters representing different perspectives.

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. 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.

The decisions engineers make on a daily basis can have significant consequences for underrepresented and disadvantaged groups in society. Prof Dawn Bonfield, Visiting Professor of Inclusive Engineering at Aston University, Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at King’s College London and a member of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Advisory Group explains…

In the recent ethics report published by the RAEng (1) you might have noticed the explicit references, in an ethics context, to the societal and social justice implications of our engineering solutions that can lead to biased or discriminatory outcomes for different groups of people. This prioritisation of inclusive outcomes is a welcome expansion of the conventional focus of engineering ethics, which is often rooted in issues such as safety, corruption, and competence.

Reference was made in the first page of the report to the use of crash test dummies that have been designed to represent male drivers, leaving women (and pregnant women in particular) at greater risk in car accidents; the potential for algorithms and internet search engines to influence our thoughts on the world; issues arising from facial recognition technology failing to accurately identify those from Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority communities; and the use of artificial intelligence systems that will make safety-critical, legal, and other life changing decisions, which are often based on historical and biased datasets. You can further explore some of the issues with facial recognition technology in one of the ethics case studies produced by the EPC for their RAEng-supported Engineering Ethics toolkit.

These are all examples of how, as engineers, we can inadvertently create solutions that are biased against minoritized groups of people if we are not careful. This generally occurs as a direct result of the fact that these groups of people are poorly represented in the engineering sector, and so their inputs are missing in the specification, design, and testing of new technologies (2).

But even before we get to a truly diverse engineering workforce, all engineers must be mindful of the ways in which the decisions they take can be discriminatory or can promulgate bias. In situations like the ones mentioned above it is relatively easy to spot the opportunity for discrimination, but in other cases it can be much more difficult. For example, there are ethical implications associated with the sort of ducting that gets chosen for a new building, where one material causes more pollution to socially and economically disadvantaged populations than another. It is in cases like this that a little more thought is required to spot whether the outcomes of these decisions are inclusive and ethical, or not.

Recently, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown us very clearly what the ethical implications are of our built environment decisions and designs, where people living in densely populated and overcrowded urban areas with minimal access to outdoor space have had significantly worse health outcomes than those with access to outdoor and green spaces. Inclusive design of the built environment is now a growing and recognised area of our engineering work, and as well as the more obvious examples of ensuring equitable access to those with disability issues, it also recognises that public spaces should be equitable and accessible to all communities. Everybody needs to see themselves represented in these environments and feel able to use them safely and fully. These are issues of ethics and inclusion, as well as social justice and equality, and the requirement we have as engineers to consider all of these perspectives as the creators of our future world must be a part of our systems engineering mindset. Several of the EPC’s ethics case studies focus on responsibility, equity, and stakeholder engagement, such as the Ageing Pipeline and its Impact on Local Communities case.

The importance of systems, design, iterative thinking, and the focus on ensuring that the whole life cycle of a product, including maintenance, repair, deconstruction, and end of life decommissioning, requires true stakeholder engagement, means that these inclusive outcomes can be considered at the very start of projects, rather than as an afterthought, where any changes are much more difficult and costly to integrate. The strengthening of the Social Value Act (3), which requires people who commission public services to explicitly evaluate how they can secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits, also puts emphasis on ensuring the outcomes of any procurement are inclusive and ethical. Similarly, the Sustainable Development Goals ethos of Leave No One Behind (4) requires that outcomes are considered from all perspectives, and that solutions taking all of the goals into account are balanced and not considered in silos. The EPC’s ethics case study on Business Growth Models allows engineering students to explore many of these issues.

Designing with the gender perspective in mind, especially in parts of the world where women have very different societal roles based on culture, stereotypes, local norms, and religion, is key to ensuring that the differences and disadvantages that women face are not exacerbated. Understanding these differences is the first step in addressing them, and in many cases, technology can act as a real enabler in situations where women have limited access to traditional education, information, and independence. For example, the widespread use of microfinance in many parts of Africa – a technology not aimed specifically at women – is nevertheless giving women much better access to loans and financial independence than the traditional banking structures did, which women are not always able to access easily. Other examples include understanding the need for sanitation facilities in public spaces such as schools, government offices, transportation hubs and health clinics, without which women’s access to these facilities becomes restricted and their participation curtailed (5).

Another ethical issue comes into play here too. Do we design just to remove bias and discrimination, or do we design to reverse historical bias and discrimination? For example, women have traditionally worked in certain sectors such as care giving roles, and not in sectors like engineering and technology. Algorithmic decision-making tools can use this historical data to preferentially show stereotypical job opportunities based on past trends and evidence, which could foreseeably prevent women from being targeted for engineering related roles. Adapting these tools to make these job opportunities open to all in an equitable way is one thing, but what if we decided to preferentially show engineering roles to women and caring roles to men – a kind of social engineering, if you will? What are the ethics of this, and would that be going too far to remove biases? I will leave you to think about this one yourselves!  If you would like to write a case study about it, we are currently looking for contributors to the toolkit!

The decisions we make daily as engineers have consequences to individuals and communities that have not always been understood or considered in the past, but by understanding the need for inclusive outcomes for all stakeholders, we also ensure that our solutions are ethical, and that we leave no on behind. The ethics case studies in the EPC’s recently launched Engineering Ethics Toolkit reveal the ethical concepts that comprise our everyday activities and what lies behind those decisions – resources like this should be used to ensure ethical decision making is integrated throughout an engineers’ education and continuing professional development.

This blog is also available here.

References

  1. RAEng Ethics Report https://raeng.org.uk/policy-and-resources/education-policy/the-engineering-profession/global-responsibility-and-progressive-engineering-leadership/ethics
  2. inceng.org website
  3. Social Value Act https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-value-act-information-and-resources/social-value-act-information-and-resources
  4. Sustainable Development Goals ethos of Leave No One Behind https://unsdg.un.org/2030-agenda/universal-values/leave-no-one-behind
  5. Towards Vision Website ‘Gender Perspective in Engineering’ http://www.towardsvision.org/the-gender-perspective-in-engineering.html

 

Dawn Bonfield MBE CEng FIMMM FICE HonFIStructE FWES is Visiting Professor of Inclusive Engineering at Aston University and Royal Society Entrepreneur in Residence at King’s College London.

 

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.

EPC President Prof Mike Sutcliffe introduces an ambitious new initiative to ensure engineering education is a force for good: the EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit, produced in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Engineering can have significant impact on society and the environment, both positive and negative.  Harnessing the power of engineering to build a sustainable society that works for everyone require us to navigate complexity, uncertainty and challenging ethical issues.

Understanding ethical issues and behaving in an ethical manner underpins other behaviours such as inclusivity and sustainability, ensuring that individual practitioners, professions and organisations are globally responsible. To maximise positive impact these behaviours must become instinctive – golden threads running through everything that engineers think and do.

The EPC Board considered its own ethical responsibility – including representing our members’ views, supporting good practice and as an organisation – at its retreat in January 2020.  This led to the clear action for the EPC to promote engineering ethics more proactively and adopt clear ethical positions.  A key aspect of this is enabling the embedding of ethical best practice into the UK engineering higher education curriculum through creation of an ‘Engineering Ethics Toolkit’.

There is growing advocacy for bringing engineering ethics to the fore in engineering programmes – alongside technical skills – as we equip future engineers with the skills and mindset they need to succeed.  At the policy level, this is evident in three general areas:

  1. The UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment (UK-SPEC; 4th edition) and accreditation bodies identifying ethics as one of the core learning outcomes and competencies in accreditation documents;
  2. The inclusion of more descriptive competencies that expand on the understanding and practical application engineering ethics; and 
  3. The Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes in engineering (AHEP, 4th edition) standards reflecting the importance of societal impact in engineering.

Today we are pleased to launch the first milestone in the development of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit – a range of case studies and supporting articles to help engineering educators integrate ethics content into their teaching.

This will allow engineering students to be able to identify ethical issues, exercise ethical thinking and use ethical judgement within their projects and coursework.  

Producing this first phase of the toolkit has been a fabulous team effort – the high priority placed on creating this exemplified by remaining on track and producing a high-quality resource despite the challenges faced from Covid-19.  Everyone has done an amazing job. 

This would not have been possible without the generosity and support of the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Engineering Council with whom they are partnering.  As chair, Raffaella Ocone (Herriot Watt) is doing a wonderful job of guiding us – getting us off to a flying start with her previous trailblazing work on embedding ethics into the curriculum. And Sarah Jayne Hitt (formerly NMiTE) is doing an absolutely fabulous job of keeping us focussed, on track and producing high-quality resources informed by best practice.    

This achievement is a wonderful example of how, as engineers, we work most effectively when we work together to design effective solutions – a team I enjoy working with and am proud to be a part of.

We hope you find these resources for embedding ethics into the curriculum useful.  Do let us know how you get on and keep an eye out as we continue to expand these resources into a more comprehensive toolkit for engineering educators.

 

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.

Welcome to the case studies pages of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit, produced in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering. Click here for the toolkit homepage.

Case studies are one tool that can be used to address the context and impact of engineering ethics, and have been proven to be an effective teaching and learning method.

These case studies cover a variety of engineering disciplines, professional situations, and personal dilemmas and focuses on several areas of moral pedagogy. They were developed for use in higher education, but may also be of use in other settings.

To accommodate many educational levels, the case studies are divided between Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced cases. They are written in parts so that educators have the flexibility to use them as is best suited to their teaching content and environment, and all cases permit and encourage the integration of technical content. Along with learning and teaching notes, the cases contain suggested questions and activities as well as supplementary materials.

They are aligned to the Engineering Council and Royal Academy of Engineering’s Joint Statement of Ethical Principles and the expectations of the 4th Edition of the Engineering Council’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes and are therefore appropriate for UK teaching and learning contexts. They are, however, easily adapted for use in other countries.

Guidance articles are also available to help situate the case studies in an educational context and to signpost to additional research and resources on engineering ethics.

In developing the cases and articles in this resource, the authors and advisory group took into account recent scholarship on best practices in teaching engineering ethics through case studies. They also reviewed existing case study libraries in order to add to the growing body of material available on engineering ethics. 

Case studies

Case study Topic Disciplines Issues Level
Aid vs trade Suitable technology for developing countries

Mechanical engineering
Electrical engineering
Energy

Sustainability
Honesty 
Integrity
Public good


Advanced
Balancing risk and benefits when working with offshore contractors Dealing with contracts or subcontracts with potential slave or forced labour

Manufacturing
Engineering business

Social responsibility
Human rights 
Risk


Beginner
Balancing safety, costs, and the environment in the inspection of wind turbine blades  Maintenance of an offshore wind farm

Mechanical
Energy

Sustainability
Risk


Beginner
Debating the adoption of nuclear energy Participatory approaches for engaging with a local community about the development of risky technologies

Nuclear engineering
Chemical engineering
Energy

Corporate social responsibility
Risk 
Accountability
Respect for the environment


Advanced
Developing a decarbonisation roadmap  A country-wide energy transition plan

Energy
Electrical

Sustainability
Social responsibility
Risk


Beginner
Engineers and public protest Balancing personal values and professional conduct in the climate emergency

Civil engineering
Energy and environmental engineering
Energy

Respect for the environment
Justice 
Accountability
Social responsibility
Risk
Sustainability
Health
Public good
Respect for the law
Future generations
Societal impact


Intermediate
Feasibility of installing heat pumps at scale to reach net zero Home heating in the energy transition

Civil engineering
Chemical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Energy

Sustainability 
Social responsibility


Intermediate
Financially and politically motivated misinformation about STEM research Critical digital literacy

Computer science
Information systems
Biomedical engineering

Cultural context 
Social responsibility
Privacy


Intermediate
Implementing the use of homegrown mass timber for residential housing Sustainable materials  in construction

Civil engineering
Manufacturing
Construction

Sustainability 
Respect for the environment
Future generations
Societal impact
Corporate social responsibility


Intermediate
Microplastics in cosmetics Responsibility for micro- and nano-plastics in the environment and human bodies

Environmental engineering
Chemical engineering
Mechanical engineering
Materials engineering

Respect for the environment 
Corporate social responsibility
Power
Safety


Intermediate
Neuroethics of brain-computer interfaces Data security of smart technologies

Electronics
Data
Biomedical engineering

Autonomy
Dignity 
Privacy
Confidentiality


Advanced
Protecting data in an auto parts production facility Data security of industrial robots

Robotics
Data
Internet of things

Safety
Health
Privacy
Transparency


Intermediate
Recycled materials and the circular economy Materials sourcing and circularity

Materials engineering
Manufacturing
Environmental engineering
Construction

Respect for the environment
Risk


Intermediate
Business growth models in engineering industries within an economic system  Ethical entrepreneurship in engineering industries Mechanical engineering
Electrical and electronic engineering
Chemical engineering
Justice
Corporate social responsibility
Accountability
Beginner
Intermediate
Advanced
Facial recognition for access and monitoring Development and use of a facial recognition system Data
Electronics
Computer science
AI
Diversity
Bias
Privacy
Transparency
Advanced
Choosing a career in climate change geoengineering Soil carbon sequestration and solar geoengineering Chemical engineering
Energy
Environmental engineering
Respect of the environment
Social responsibility Risk.
Beginner
Glass safety in a heritage building conversion Safety of construction materials Mechanical engineering
Materials
Safety
Communication, Whistleblowing
Power
Beginner
Developing an internet constellation   Low earth orbit satellites for internet provision Electronics Mechanical engineering Respect for environment
Public good
Future generations
 Intermediate
Industrial pollution from an ageing pipeline and its impact on local communities Monitoring and resolving industrial pollution Chemical engineering
Civil engineering
Manufacturing
Mechanical engineering
Environment
Health
Public good
Advanced
Power to food technologies Alternative food production Energy
Chemical engineering
Sustainability
Social responsibility
Advanced
Developing a school chatbot for student support services Developing customised algorithms for student support Computing
AI
Data.
Bias
Social responsibility
Risk
Privacy
Beginner
Water wars: managing competing water rights Data centres’ impact on sustainable water resources Civil engineering
Electronic engineering
Sustainability
Respect for environment
Future generations
Risk
Societal impact
Intermediate
Smart homes for older people with disabilities Data security of smart technologies Electronics
Data
Mechatronics
Autonomy
Dignity
Privacy
Confidentiality
Intermediate
Choosing to install a smart meter Smart meters for responsible everyday energy use Electrical engineering Integrity
Transparency
Social responsibility
Respect for the environment
Respect for the law
Beginner
Solar panels in a desert oil field Trade-offs in the energy transition Chemical engineering
Electrical engineering
Energy
Sustainability
Honesty
Respect for the environment
Public good
Intermediate

Most case studies are also available as PDF documents on the RAEng website.

To ensure that everyone can use and adapt these cases in a way that best fits their teaching or purpose, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.  Under this licence, you are free to share and adapt this material, under terms that you must give appropriate credit and attribution to the original material and indicate if any changes are made.

Get involved: These case studies were created as part of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit that is intended to evolve and grow over time. Further case studies are being developed and will be added in due course, along with additional teaching resources to support individual case studies. We are actively inviting experts to submit case studies for review and possible inclusion in this toolkit. For more information, see our Get involved page.

 
Welcome to the advice and guidance pages of EPC’s Engineering Ethics toolkit, produced in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering. Click here for the toolkit homepage.

These guidance articles are intended to provide a library of expertise in engineering ethics and how best to embed learning into teaching practice. They aim to help situate our case studies in an educational context and to signpost to additional research and resources on engineering ethics.

Introduction to engineering ethics:

Integrating ethics:

Debate & discussion:

Using case studies:

Assessing ethics:

Topics:

 

To ensure that everyone can use and adapt these articles in a way that best fits their teaching or purpose, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Under this license you are free to share and adapt this material, under terms that you must give appropriate credit and attribution to the original material and indicate if any changes are made.

Get involved: These guidance articles were created as part of the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit that is intended to evolve and grow over time. Further content will be added or linked to in due course. We are actively inviting experts to submit resources for review and possible inclusion in this toolkit. For more information, see our Get involved page.

Find the right tool

Use the search to find the tools you need.

Use any of these to search toolkit contents

Select toolkits to search:

And/or search by keywords:

Tips

And/or type your own search:

Welcome to the EPC’s Engineering Ethics Toolkit. Here you will find our resource designed to help engineering educators embed ethics in teaching.

How to get the most out of the Engineering Ethics Toolkit

An interactive tool to help you navigate the landscape of engineering ethics education

A library of expertise in engineering ethics and how best to embed learning into teaching practice

Expertise guidance on assessing ethics learning in engineering education

Ethical engineering challenges for use in teaching scenarios

Teaching resources to help you employ the ethics case studies and lead the activities referenced within them

Personal experience, news and updates on the Engineering Ethics Toolkit

The Royal Academy of Engineering has supported the Engineering Ethics Toolkit since its inception

Collaborate with us and support this important project

We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to making the Toolkit such a useful and vital resource

Contribute to the Engineering Ethics Toolkit and community

 

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20 Mar 2023
Integrating a technical feasibility debate - a new approach to engaging students in ethics in engineering

We have developed a debate activity which appears to work very well, minimising the amount of ass...[Read More]

20 Mar 2023
Universal and inclusive co-design of the built environment and the transportation systems 

Every citizen must have the same equality of opportunities in using spaces because the existence ...[Read More]

20 Mar 2023
How to integrate ethics into a module or course

Ethics can and should be embedded into most modules in a natural way, giving as much or as little...[Read More]

20 Mar 2023
Case enhancement: Choosing to install a smart meter

This enhancement is for an activity found in the Dilemma Part two, Point 1 section of the case: “...[Read More]

20 Mar 2023
Tackling tough topics in discussion

Discussing ethical issues can be a daunting prospect, whether one-to-one or with an entire classr...[Read More]

20 Mar 2023
Case enhancement: Developing a school chatbot for student support services

This enhancement is for an activity found in point five of the Summary section of the case study ...[Read More]

15 Mar 2023
Blog: Engineering inclusive outcomes is a question of ethics

Prof Dawn Bonfield explains how the decisions engineers make on a daily basis can have significan...[Read More]

24 Aug 2022
Blog: Engineering Ethics Toolkit case studies in action at TEDI-London

Prof Mike Bramhall reflects on how and why he incorporated the EPC's engineering ethics case stud...[Read More]

18 Aug 2022
Contributions sought for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit

Contributions sought for the Engineering Ethics Toolkit[Read More]

18 Jul 2022
Existing ethics case study libraries

The Engineering Ethics toolkit points to existing case study libraries.[Read More]

23 Mar 2022
Case Study: Developing an internet constellation

This case is about an experienced engineer leading a team at a tech start-up. [Read More]

21 Mar 2022
Case study: Water wars: managing competing water rights

This case involves a situation where environmental damage may be occurring despite the mechanism ...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Solar panels in a desert oil field

This case requires an engineer with strong convictions about sustainable energy to make a decisio...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Smart homes for older people with disabilities

This case involves a software engineer who has discovered a potential data breach in a smart home...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Blog: Engineering Ethics Advisory Group

The Engineering Ethics Toolkit is produced by the Engineering Professors’ Council with support fr...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Power-to-food technologies

This case involves an engineer navigating multiple demands on a work project. The engineer must e...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Industrial pollution from an ageing pipeline and its impact on local communities

This case requires an engineer to balance multiple competing factors including: economic pressure...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Blog: Welcome to the Engineering Ethics Toolkit

An ambitious new initiative to ensure engineering education is a force for good.[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Glass safety in a heritage building conversion

This case concerns a construction engineer navigating multiple demands. [Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Facial recognition for access and monitoring

An engineer is hired to manage the development and installation of a facial recognition project.[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case Study: Developing a school chatbot for student support services

This case study involves the employees of a small software startup that is creating a customised ...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Choosing a career in climate change geoengineering

This case involves a dilemma that most engineering students will have to face at least once in th...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Business growth models in engineering industries within an economic system

This case involves the CEO of Hydrospector, a newly formed company that makes devices detecting w...[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Best practice in teaching engineering ethics through case studies

Recent scholarship on best practices in teaching engineering ethics through case studies.[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Pedagogical approaches to integrating ethics in engineering

It is essential to embed ethics into any project or learning outcome.[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Methods for assessing and evaluating ethics learning in engineering education

Educators may use these ethics learning aims and outcomes as guidance for developing assessments.[Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Case study: Choosing to install a smart meter

This case is an example of ‘everyday ethics’. [Read More]

21 Feb 2022
Guidance for ethical decision-making rooted in research and practice

What if a decision is required quickly? How do we ensure that we are likely to make the best one?[Read More]

21 Feb 2022

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