Projects on Engineering Ethics Education

Routledge Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education

The Handbook project is led by Shannon Chance (TU Dublin, Ireland/UCL, The UK) and Tom Børsen (Aalborg, Denmark), who are joined in the editorial team by SIG members Diana Martin (UCL), Roland Tormey (EPFL, Switzerland), Thomas Lennerfors (Uppsala, Sweden), and Gunter Bombaerts (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands). The handbook will be published in 2024 and comprises 36 chapters authored by >100 engineering ethics education researchers and teachers. The Handbook is expected to be a valuable resource for the global engineering education community.

SIG Ethics Spring School

In the winter of 2019, Gunter Bombaerts hosted at TU Eindhoven the first school that brought together teachers and researchers working on engineering ethics education topics. Since then, the event took place yearly, and has been hosted by Roland Tormey (online, spring 2021; Leysin, spring 2022), Madeline Polmear (VU Brussels, spring 2023) and Andre Bayer (TU Berlin, spring 2024). Thie spring school is a community event for presenting research and developing joint projects.

SEFI ethics newsletter and editorials

The SEFI ethics newsletter and editorials is a project that started in 2019 under the coordination of Roland Tormey (EPFL, Switzerland) and Diana Martin (UCL, The UK). Between 2020- 2023, the project has been coordinated by Gunter Bombaerts (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands) and Diana Martin (UCL, The UK). It published on the SEFI website editorials by contributors across the world and of different career levels, on themes ranging from values in engineering design, accreditation, sustainability, case studies, teaching with film and fiction, emotions and intuition in engineering education, social justice, water ethics, global and intercultural aspects in engineering ethics education, experiential education, change in engineering education, generative AI.

Online seminar series

The online seminar series is a project initiated by Diana Martin (UCL, The UK) in 2021. Between 2021-2023, the online seminar series hosted teachers and researchers across the globe on a diverse range of topics. Some of the events in the series are available on the SEFI youtube channel and comprises the following sessions:

Engineering Education Leaders’ Vision on the Role and Prospects of Ethics, with speakers Donna Riley (Purdue University, USA) Making Meaning: Engineering Ethics and the Aspirational Good; John E. Mitchell (University College London, UK) How an integrated curriculum can support the teaching of ethics in engineering programmes; Isabelle Reymen (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands) Challenge-Based Learning: Developing responsible engineers of the future LINK
Responsible Research and Innovation in Engineering Education, with Speakers:Tom Børsen (Aalborg University, Denmark)Kate Roach (University College London, UK): LINK
Engineers for social change, with speakers Susan Lord (University of San Diego, USA) Examples of Creative Sociotechnical Curricula for Change-making Engineers; Johanna Höffken (TU Eindhoven, The Netherlands) Educating for Impact: Responsible Innovation for the World; Darshan Karwat (Arizona State University, USA) Building a new field of engineering for environmental protection, justice, peace, and human rights : LINK
Teaching societal responsibility through real life projects and challenge-based learning, with speakers Christian Herzog (University of Luebeck, Germany) Teaching a Constructive Approach to the Ethics of Technology by Partnering with Start-ups as Real Case Studies; Kyriaki Papageorgiou (ESADE, Spain) Challenge-Based Innovation for Climate Change: Reflections from teaching action and responsibility through real-life projects; Emanuela Tilley (University College London, UK) Exploring social responsibility through context rich, interdisciplinary projects in the first and second years of engineering programmes; Jorge Membrillo-Hernández (Monterey Tec, Mexico) Challenge-based learning as a tool for acquiring skills on the path to transforming society LINK
Empowering and engaging engineering students, with speakers Homero Murzi (Virginia Tech, USA) Culturally Relevant Pedagogy – Amplifying Students’ Voices in the Classroom; Siara Isaac (EPFL, Switzerland) Practical strategies for increasing equity in project teams: skills for students; Nathan Amanquah (Asheshi University, Ghana); Karolina Doulougeri (TU Eindhoven, Netherlands) Empowering engineering students to become self-regulated learners LINK
Engineering education for sustainability, with speakers Aida Guerra (Aalborg University) What do students have to say about UN’s Sustainable Development Goals? – Perspectives and engagement; André Baier (TU Berlin) Student-driven social and ecological responsibility engineering education; Jonathan Truslove (Engineers Without Borders UK) How do you create passion and potential to contribute to a safe and just world?; Jordi Segalas (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) Sustainability Competencies and Learning Outcomes in Engineering Education. Spanish framework LINK
Global perspectives for engineering ethics education, with speakers Glen Miller (Texas A&M University, USA), Alexandra Kazakova (Gubkin Russian State University, Russia), Satya Sundar Sethy (Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India) Qin Zhu, (Colorado School of Mines, USA) LINK
STS Postures: Changing How Undergraduate STEM Students Move Through the World, with speakers Nicole Mogul and David Tomblin (Science, Technology and Society: University of Maryland College Park, The US) LINK
Water ethics and responsible engineering, with speakers Yanna Lambrinidou (Virginia Tech, USA) On Helping Engineers to Help Communities: Water Insecurity, Research Justice, and Social Change; Rafael Ziegler (HEC Montréal, Canada) Utopia dynamises action – action dynamises utopia. A back-casting approach for group-based learning for water innovation and sustainability; Neelke Dorn (TU Delft, The Netherlands) Water Ethics and Responsible Engineering: Against naïve optimization; Edmond Byrne (University College Cork, Ireland) Urban water provision; engineering considerations and ethical framings LINK
Justice and community engagement in engineering education, with speakers Khalid Kadir (UC Berkeley, the US) Ethics Is Not Enough: Justice as the Ends and Means of Engineering Education; Patricia Xavier, Gabrielle Orbaek White, Nathalie Al-Kakoun (Swansea University, the UK) Finding spaces for humility and different perspectives in engineering community engagement; Jason Borenstein (Georgia Institute of technology, the US) Community Engagement and Undergraduate Social Responsibility Attitudes; Cristiano Cordeiro Cruz (Aeronautics Technological Institute, Brazil) Supporting community emancipation and learning how to practice “another possible” engineering: the Brazilian Grassroots Engineering case LINK
Film and fiction in engineering ethics education, with speakers Thomas Lennerfors (Uppsala University, Sweden) and Sarah Hitt (NMITE, The UK) LINK
Using case studies in engineering ethics education, with speakers Cindy Rottmann (University of Toronto, Canada) Decoupling ethics from equity is neither ethical nor equitable; Aditya Johri (George Mason University, USA) Implementing Role-Play Case Studies for Teaching Ethics in Online Classes; Dympna O’Sullivan (TU Dublin, Ireland) Dark Patterns: When Software Engineers go to the Dark Side; Thomas Lennerfors (Uppsala University, Sweden): Case hacks: Four hacks for promoting critical thinking in education for sustainable development LINK
Ethics in the context of accreditation, with speakers Alison Gwynn-Evans (University of Cape Town, South Africa) Using an expanded conceptual framework for ethics to engage with accreditation: A South African perspective; Madeline Polmear (University of Florida, USA) “Engineering educators’ perspectives on accreditation in the US context;” Diana Adela Martin and Catherine Deegan (TU Dublin, Ireland) Evaluating ethics for the purpose of accreditation on-site and online: challenges and suggestions from the Irish context; organiser Dr Sarah Junaid (Aston University, UK) LINK

The series will resume in 2025 with sessions dedicated to themes emerging from the Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education

Policy

At this stage, the work of the Policy group is focused on accreditation and informs a dedicated section of the SEFI Ethics Handbook. The group is coordinated by Sarah Junaid (Aston University, the UK). The group has presented two papers analysing the discourse of accreditation requirements purporting to ethics at SEFI 2021 and 2022

Junaid, S., Gwynne-Evans, A., Kovacs, H., Lönngren, J., Mejia, J. F. J., Natsume, K., Polmear, M., Serreau, Y., Shaw, C., Toboșaru, M., & Martin, D. A. (2022). What is the role of ethics in accreditation documentation from a global view? In H.-M. Jarvinen, S. Silvestre, A. Llorens, & B. V. Nagy (editors), SEFI 2022 – 50th Annual Conference of the European Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings, 369-378. European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). https://doi.org/10.5821/conference-9788412322262.1336

Junaid, S., Kovacs, H., Martin, D. A., & Serreau, Y. (2021). What is the role of ethics in accreditation guidelines for engineering programmes in Europe? In H.-U. Heiß, H.-M. Järvinen, A. Mayer, & A. Schulz (editors), Proceedings SEFI 49th Annual Conference: Blended Learning in Engineering Education: challenging, enlightening – and lasting? (blz. 274-282). European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI). https://www.sefi.be/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SEFI49th-Proceedings-final.pdf

Emotions in ethics

The group aims to explore potential tools for researching emotions in engineering ethics education, with the aim of developing joint studies. The group is led by Johanna Lönngren (University of Umea, Sweden).

Capacity development in Eastern Europe

The group was initiated in the autumn of 2022 by Diana Bairaktarova (Virginia Tech, The US), after the SEFI Annual Conference, to respond to the need for a higher representation of engineering education researchers based in or from Eastern Europe in SEFI. After the group presented a cross-country autoethnographic research publication under the coordination of Diana Bairaktarova for the 2023 SEFI Annual Conference, in 2024 the group expands the focus to capacity development in Romania via the co-leadership of Mircea Toboşaru (University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania). The groups aims to consolidate the status of engineering ethics education research in Eastern Europe, encourage the participation of researchers from Eastern Europe in SEFI activities (the annual conference, the SIG spring school) and the development of joint studies and publications.

Bairaktarova, D., Lhotska, L., Moktefi, A., Pevkur, A., & Vică, C. (2023). Making Meaning Together: An Autoethnography Study On Our Role In Ethics Education. Paper presented at European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) Annual Conference. https://doi.org/10.21427/azgt-gb18

NEW PROJECTS LAUNCHED IN 2024:

Epistemology of engineering education. This is a new project launching in 2024 under the leadership of Siara Isaac (EPFL). The focus of the project is to build a community interested in researching ways to understand and address uncertainty and discomfort in engineering, which will ultimately lead to joint studies and potentially a special issue submission for EJEE.

Enhancing engineering ethics education. This is a new project launching in 2024 under the leadership of Fátima Monteiro, (Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Coimbra & Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto) and Armando Sousa (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto & INESC TEC – INESC Technology and Science) Portugal. The project aims to investigate the pedagogical methodologies used in ethics classes in engineering courses in Europe emphasizing the interconnection between ethics and technical-scientific content, develop initiatives to promote the value of ethics education among teachers and students, with a special emphasis on Electrical Engineering, and potentially create a user-friendly online repository. The project aims to serve the basis for an European project proposal.