Making connections: Engineering ethics on the World Wide Web

Abstract

Summary form only given. Though only a few years old, the World Wide Web is a rich and rapidly growing resource of information on engineering ethics. The Web provides a convenient gateway to on-line instructional materials for faculty preparing engineering ethics courses or course modules, resources for use by students and practicing engineers, and archival information for research on engineering ethics by scholars and representative of engineering societies. This paper focuses on the use of the World Wide Web in engineering education, with particular relevance to courses on engineering ethics and/or the social implications of engineering. Course materials and resources for use by students include: ethics centers that focus on engineering ethics and/or other fields of professional ethics; case studies and other instructional materials; course syllabi; codes of engineering ethics; ethics pages of professional societies; papers, articles and reports with relevance to engineering and computer ethics; and on-line ethics journals and newsletters. There is also a wealth of primary source material, including, for example, bulletins of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Food and Drug Administration, and extensive archival sites such as the server NASA maintains on the Challenger disaster and Project Polyn, a Russian site with scientific information on the Chernobyl accident. In addition to providing information on engineering ethics, the Web lends itself to use as a place to post a living course syllabus with hypertext links to on- and off-site reading materials.