Experiences in Integrating Ethics for Engineers in MSc Programmes

Headlines in media reminds us once in a while about the importance of competence in ethics among engineers. One case that has got a lot of attention recently is the “emission scandal” involving Volkswagen. However, the need of competence in ethics is not just to avoid scandals but can also be valuable in the daily work of engineers and could, for examples, give insights in design processes. The Swedish System of Qualifications for engineers includes a learning outcome for research and engineering ethics. Students who have got a Master’s degree should have: ”ability to formulate judgments, within the field of study, that include reflection on relevant scientific, social or ethical issues; and to show insights on ethical aspects on research and development”. There is a long tradition at Chalmers University of Technology to include sustainable development in the study programmes. However, the focus is on the environmental dimension of sustainable development, and the social dimension and ethics are not included to the same extent. Thus, a project was started in 2013 with the aim to improve the integration of ethics in the 13 two year-long Master’s programmes in the educational area: “electrical and computer engineering, information technology, and industrial engineering”. The project has resulted in some programme and course development but the project is still running since there are still some programmes in which ethics has not yet been integrated. In this paper, we share experiences from the project mentioned above to improve ethics in Master’s programmes at Chalmers. The aim is to support and stimulate to similar activities at other universities. The objectives are to describe and discuss: • the change process for integrating ethics into the Master’s programmes at Chalmers, • results of this work, such as amount and type of ethics integrated into the programmes, and differences concerning both content and pedagogy, • challenges that have occurred and still exist to accomplish a successful integration of ethics into the programmes, and • lessons learnt and recommendations for how to support programme directors and teachers to accomplish such a change. The change process started by asking programme directors to identify courses in their programmes in which it could be relevant to include ethics, and then to encourage teachers in these courses to make appropriate changes. There are varying results in the programmes, and of special interest can be examples of differences in content and pedagogy, from which others can get inspiration. The main challenge is that many of the programme directors and teachers are insecure about what ethics is all about and how to include it in education. A lesson is that it is a strength if teachers in engineering can improve their competence in ethics to make it possible for themselves to do the teaching, but it takes time and a recommendation is to, as a complement, start collaborations with philosophers who have knowledge about ethics in combination with technology.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016