Members of 4TU.Ethics do a lot of ethics teaching for engineering students, in a wide range of engineering disciplines. Since ethics are mostly taught in context, case-based exercises (CBEs) are a central instrument in this teaching practice. These CBEs are hardly ever shared or published while they could be reused (or used as an inspiration) by other teachers in the community. To create a channel for reuse and a process for production and publication of CBEs, 4TU.Ethics started the project Ethics Education for Engineers.
In the context of this project, the 4TU.ethics has collected case-based ethics exercises to be used in teaching ethics for engineering studies, especially at Bachelor's and Master's levels. All cases are based on the principle of active learning: the exercises are built around the students' active engagement with moral issues around technology and engineering. The exercises in this collection tackle issues from three major technological domains (ICT, bio-health, and environmental technologies) and from engineering professional practice.
In addition to the actual cases, we provide a collection of ethical concepts and theories briefly explained (Ethics glossary) to be used for reference and a collection with materials and instructions for building your own ethics cases (the Toolkit)
The cases were written and edited by researchers in the 4TU.Ethics community. 4TU.Ethics is a community of researchers that aims to advance understanding of ethical issues in engineering and technology development, and to innovate education in the ethics of technology.
The case-based exercises are provided by the teachers in the philosophy sections from the member institutions of 4TU.Ethics: TU Eindhoven, TU Delft, Twente University, and Wageningen University & Research. A grant by the ministry of Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (stimuleringsregeling Open en online onderwijs- tranche 5, Pijler Open leermateriaal) facilitates the gathering and standardization of this first collection of exercises (2019-2021). 4TU.Ethics intends to continue extending the collection and very much welcomes contributions from and cooperation with teachers and institutions in engineering education.
This collection of education materials can be found here.
If you have questions about this project, or you would like to contribute, then contact education@ethicsandtechnology.eu