IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication PC-28:3 (September 1985)

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Peer Performance Evaluation

See last item on Proposal Project Overview See the template for this final assignment.

For now, keep notes on how helpful and cooperative your partner and your lab mates are. Keep notes on your own collaborative skills.

Research Ethics

Ethical problems in engineering often concern harm or potential harm.

What things may be harmed? Who is harmed by research misconduct?

Physicist Jan Hendrik Schön’s casehttp://www.chass.ncsu.edu/langure/Schon.htm

Civil Engineer John Sheilshttp://www.constructionweblinks.com/Resources/Industry_Reports__Newsletters/Nov_14_2005/misl.html

Other examples from other disciplines

What is research ethics? Ethical conduct of these activities:

Gathering data

Selecting and presenting data

Publishing research results

Problem: falsifying or fabricating data

Problems: Failing to account for anomalous data or to highlight critical info. for audience.

Problem: plagiarizing or using placeholder data

How you present the data can mean the difference between life and death.

Investigation after Challenger accident focused on communication problems between Morton Thiokol and NASA.

See Tufte’s famous “damage index” – a better way to present information about the possible o-ring failure that caused the Challenger disaster. from Visual Explanations (2000)

Data on o-ring damage in field tests were used to calculate damage scores. Scores were then plotted against temperature.

Theory Principle Practical advice

Research case

Weakness

1. Egoism A person ought to do what is in his/her own long-term best interests.

Focus on my ultimate goal.

Falsifying data.

Arbitrarily prejudiced toward one person's interests (mine).

2. Virtue A person ought to do what the group considers to be admirable, just, etc.

Observe my profession's rules; be honest, fair, law-abiding, responsible.

Professional codes.

Seems to make it impossible to criticize the group's rules.

3. Utilitarianism A person ought to do what will maximize aggregate happiness and satisfy all interests.

Consider equally the like interests of all individuals affected by my actions.

Use of humans and animals in research.

Seems to undervalue our attachment to those nearest and dearest to us.

4. Moral rights A person ought to respect each individual's moral rights.

Never harm an individual in order to secure benefits for others.

Intellectual property.

Difficult to justify the existence of rights claims.

Different ethical theories may lead to different research behaviors.

How would the four theories justify NSPE canons, rules, obligations?

Egoism (person’s best interests)

Virtue (group’s rules)

Utilitarianism (satisfaction of aggregate interests)

Moral Rights (never harm an individual)

By Wednesday, March 11

See this ethics site at North Carolina State University.

Read slides 27-37 of this PP show (left-hand menu): Ethical principles supporting research policies

In class, we will do exercise on slide 37 using Code of Ethics of National Society of Professional Engineers.