Practical Guidance on Science and Engineering Ethics Education for Instructors and Administrators: Papers and Summary from a Workshop December 12, 2012.

摘要

Over the last two decades, colleges and universities in the United States have significantly increased the formal ethics instruction they provide in science and engineering. For the sciences, the impetus came from two federal mandates. In 1992, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began requiring instruction in responsible conduct of research for NIH trainees. In 2010, the National Science Foundation (NSF) began requiring instruction in the responsible and ethical conduct of research for all undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars supported on NSF grants awarded in 2010 and later. For engineering, the impetus for ethics education started in 1997, when ABET (formerly the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) adopted Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC2000) for accrediting engineering programs (ABET 2011). EC2000 required graduates to demonstrate an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. Although ABET criteria had by 1985 included an understanding of the ethical characteristics of the engineering profession (Harris et al. 2005), EC2000 added assessment of student outcomes in professional ethics as well as other outcomes in engineering education.