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Seminar 3 - Engineering Ethics

Reflection submission deadline: see "Submission and seminar dates..."

Seminar date and time: see  "Submission and seminar dates..."

Engineering Ethics deals with the ethical issues of developing and implementing new technologies as well as with the guiding principles of engineering practice. In this seminar we will cover both of these aspects.

Reading before the seminar

Ethical issues of designing new technologies

1. Elin Palm, Sven Ove Hansson, The case for ethical technology assessment (eTA), Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 73, Issue 5, June 2006. (Concentrate on section 5) (pdf)

2. Autonomous Systems: social, legal and ethical issues, The Royal Academy of Engineering. (pdf)

Professional code of ethics

3. IEEE Code of Ethics http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

Written reflection

General advices:

  • Read the reading assignment thoroughly, use the material extensively in your reflection text.
  • In your reflection text, be specific. Give arguments, and support your arguments with references or examples.
  • Write a continuous text, use the questions ans guidelines.

Write a reflecting text of at least 500-600 words (about a page), with two parts.

1. Ethical issues of networked services and systems

Select an emerging system or service in the area of networked services and systems, like civilian drones, large datacenters or bitcoin. Select something that you are interested in.  Analyse it from ethical point of view, building on the check list in [1]. In your analysis:

  • Describe the considered technology
  • Identify the stakeholders, that is, all the actors that are connected to this technology, including for example designers, equipment and service providers and users
  • Identify a few ethical issues related to this technology and analyze them
  • Identify and evaluate alternative solutions or actions to avoid possible ethical problems.

2.  Ethical issues of engineering practice

What parts of the IEEE Code of Ethics [3] is most relevant to the ethical issues you identified in the specific technology application that you have considered? What is missing? Propose an extension (one or several items) to [3] so that it better covers the issues you identified.

Write your name at the top of the page. Save the document in PDF format (there are several free PDF converters available, for example PrimoPDF if your word processing software does not support PDF).

If you are in group A: name the document seminar1-groupA-firstname-familyname.pdf. If you are in group B: name the document seminar1-groupB-firstname-familyname.pdf.

Send the single pdf file to vfodor@kth.se, with subject: seminar1-groupA (or B)

Before the seminar

Read all the reflecting documents of your group mates. Mark the sentences that you find particularly interesting or important. Make some notes.

During the seminar

Take your notes with you! Take active part in the discussions!

Lärare Viktoria Fodor skapade sidan 5 februari 2014

Viktoria Fodor flyttade sidan från The Sustainable Networked Systems Engineer (EP2220) 5 februari 2014

Viktoria Fodor redigerade 6 februari 2014

Reflection submission deadline: see "Submission and seminar dates..."¶

Seminar date and time: see  "Submission and seminar dates..."¶

Engineering Ethics deals with the ethical issues of developing and implementing new technologies as well as with the guiding principles of engineering practice. In this seminar we will cover both of these aspects.¶

Reading before the seminar Ethical issues of designing new technologies¶

1. Elin Palm, Sven Ove Hansson, The case for ethical technology assessment (eTA), Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 73, Issue 5, June 2006. (Concentrate on section 5) (pdf)¶

2. Autonomous Systems: social, legal and ethical issues, The Royal Academy of Engineering. (pdf)¶

Professional code of ethics¶

3. IEEE Code of Ethics http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html¶

Written reflection General advices:¶


* Read the reading assignment thoroughly, use the material extensively in your reflection text.
* In your reflection text, be specific. Give arguments, and support your arguments with references or examples.
* Write a continuous text, use the questions ans guidelines.
Write a reflecting text of at least 500-600 words (about a page), with two parts.¶

1. Ethical issues of networked services and systems¶

Select an emerging system or service in the area of networked services and systems, like civilian drones, large datacenters or bitcoin. Select something that you are interested in.  Analyse it from ethical point of view, building on the check list in [1]. In your analysis:¶


* Describe the considered technology
* Identify the stakeholders, that is, all the actors that are connected to this technology, including for example designers, equipment and service providers and users
* Identify a few ethical issues related to this technology and analyze them
* Identify and evaluate alternative solutions or actions to avoid possible ethical problems.
2.  Ethical issues of engineering practice¶

What parts of the IEEE Code of Ethics [3] is most relevant to the ethical issues you identified in the specific technology application that you have considered? What is missing? Propose an extension (one or several items) to [3] so that it better covers the issues you identified.¶

Write your name at the top of the page. Save the document in PDF format (there are several free PDF converters available, for example PrimoPDF if your word processing software does not support PDF).¶

If you are in group A: name the document seminar1-groupA-firstname-familyname.pdf. If you are in group B: name the document seminar1-groupB-firstname-familyname.pdf.¶

Send the single pdf file to vfodor@kth.se, with subject: seminar1-groupA (or B)¶

Before the seminar Read all the reflecting documents of your group mates. Mark the sentences that you find particularly interesting or important. Make some notes.¶

During the seminar Take your notes with you! Take active part in the discussions!¶

Lärare Viktoria Fodor ändrade rättigheterna 6 februari 2014

Kan därmed läsas av alla och ändras av lärare.