Carol Spradling has done a survey of how undergraduate computing programmes incorporate ethics (pdf). Of her respondents (36% of 700), 88% include social and professional issues as part of their computing degree. It is primarily taught by computer science faculty, most of whom have had no special training (77%).
She is pleased that the decision concerning how to incorporate the social and professional material is mostly made by a faculty committee, this formality giving it credence beyond an individual lecturer’s whim.
She notes a strong trend of ethics being integrated across the curriculum (76%), rather than a separate course. Given this trend, she argues that all textbooks should integrate ethics topics discussion, not separate ethics sections (or even books).
Computing for Sustainability 
Posted on March 26, 2008
0