Drafting a Code of Ethics for Engineering Education

Some within the engineering education community have asserted that engineering education should be considered a profession. While the formal meaning and identifying characteristics of a profession are debated, in general an individual that is considered professional meets at least three criteria: recognized expertise drawn from a widely accepted body of knowledge, accepted norms of professional behavior, and adherence to codified ethical standards. This paper addresses the third of these issues by exploring canons that could and should be contained within an engineering education code of ethics. To develop the framework for a code of conduct, published ethical codes from four professions-engineering, education, law, and medicine-were analyzed for both content and structure. Both areas of overlap and divergence within the codes were identified. From the areas of overlap between these professional canons a draft code of ethics for engineering education was developed and is compared with the recent American Society for Engineering Education code of ethics. The development process and resulting draft are presented to stimulate larger discussion within the engineering education community around purposes for engineering education.