The ABET 2000 Criterion 3f states that engineering programs must educate students with "an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility." In addition, the Fundamentals of Engineering and Professional Engineering examinations also address the need for ethics instruction. As such, undergraduate engineering curricula must address ethics instruction within a designated course and/or across engineering coursework. Traditionally, engineering ethics instruction has been conducted in a formal classroom setting. However, online instruction has gained rapidly in acceptance in many disciplines. Engineering programs are catching up with some programs offering all or part of their coursework online. Ethics instruction can be readily implemented in an online learning environment. This paper will address the author's experience in instructing engineering ethics at multiple universities in the traditional lecture format and compare and contrast that experience with offering an online engineering ethics format. The author will describe engineering ethics course construction for use with traditional in-seat lecture and online instruction. Student scores appear to indicate that this topic can be implemented successfully online or in-seat. Online instruction allows for greater flexibility for students to fit required coursework into busy schedules.
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