590 assignments

The purpose of this assignment is to assess your understanding of and experience with the concept of "sustainability" throughout your KSU experience and how it may affect your future decisions. Write a short paper (1-2 pages) in which you: 1) define "sustainability" specifically as it relates to your field of engineering; 2) explain how and where you have interacted with this concept while at KSU (at work, in classes, in volunteer activities...or not at all); and 3) discuss how this idea should affect how you do your job or where you go from here after graduating, whatever that may be. If you determine that "sustainability" does not or will not affect how you do your work in the future, elaborate on that and explain why. There are no right or wrong answers; I simply want to know what you think, but please put effort into explaining/justifying your position(s).

#2 ABET (Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology) Criteria

You will be asked to assess your abilities in these areas (and in other areas required by accreditation) on the survey given during the last class period of this semester. Now, write a paper discussing how you would demonstrate to a potential employer that you have the qualities listed above. Address each of the three characteristics independently. Explain what evidence you would use to help convince an employer of your abilities. While you need not limit yourself to those things associated with formal education, please explicitly include evidence, whether positive or negative, from your KSU experience.

#3 Intellectual Property Rights

Choose a case or group of cases that concern an issue of intellectual property rights (IP): patents, copyrights, software fair use, photocopying fair use, or other.
Write 3-4-pg paper as follows: Step through an analysis of the case in a semi-formal ethical analysis using these steps:

a) facts: what exactly is at issue?
b) specific questions (best if only one at this pt) (what particular point or action is a right/wrong or ethical decision)
c) affected parties
d) consequences for all parties of possible action(s)
e) obligations/duties to/from each party? Accompanying rights? (consult IEEE code, law)
f) character/integrity/virtuous behavior (what actions in this case would be considered admirable?)
g) discover some creative solutions, beyond A vs B
h) gut reaction: does your final decision FEEL right?
i) decide action and respond to objections

#5 Teamwork

The first ABET accreditation criterion engineering programs must demonstrate in their graduates is "an ability to function on multi-disciplinary teams." Relate what experiences involving teamwork you have had at KSU and elsewhere. Were they positive or negative, and in what way(s)? How would you have improved them? What did you learn from them? How has your education here affected your understanding of teamwork, and how might the EECE curriculum be modified to stress its importance (or not)? Please explicitly include your experience(s) or lack thereof at KSU.

#4 Research Paper and Presentation

Topic

Choose a team of three students if possible, and then a situation in which engineering ethics plays an important part. You may select a case study from your own experience or from history or current events, or a hypothetical situation. Examples include NSPE case studies, current or historical issues relevant to engineering/technology (Challenger, Columbia, Bhopal, cloning, national security, privacy, intellectual property...), examples of engineers acting in service to society (or not). Texts with ethics situations specific to computing issues are available from the instructor, or see the Gift of Fire website. Describe the situation, affected parties and specific question at issue, then divide the three ethical theories among the team members and discuss the question using each one separately: consequences, rights/duties (IEEE ethics code in particular), and virtue ethics. Resources on Ethics on the main course page may be helpful. Each analysis should come to a conclusion, with a recommended course of action. Do not be afraid of controversy; there is more to be learned in the grey areas of life than the black-and-white. As a team then compare your different analyses, make a final recommendation and defend your decision.

Paper Details

The paper should have an introduction presenting the details of the case, affected parties and specific question(s) under consideration. Then each team member should write up his/her ethical analysis separately; approximately 5 pages per section is a good goal. Detail any assumptions you've made in your analysis. Finally, prepare a joint conclusion comparing your individual results and making and defending a final recommendation. Each team member will be graded separately, though the introduction and conclusion will reflect on all team members.

The paper should be 15-20 pages in length overall and must reference at least three outside sources. WWW sources are acceptable provided they are from a site expected to be reasonably authoritative. These include government, university or established industry-sponsored pages, but beware: a university web address does not make an on-line undergraduate paper an authoritative source of information. Dictionaries and encyclopedias (including Wikipedia) are permitted for basic definitions but don't count among your three references. Use common sense and good judgement. If in doubt, consult the instructor. Sources will be checked for reasonable authority. Failure to include references and citations will result in a '0' on the paper and a report to the Honor and Integrity Office. See "How to Credit Properly the Contributions of Others."

References must be cited in the body of the paper, and all figures must include a reference to the source in the figure caption. See the IEEE Guidelines for Authors (p. 6 of pdf document) for citation format; if in doubt consult the instructor. Every idea not common knowledge among your peers must be referenced to an authoritative source. Failure to cite references in the paper body will result in a '0' on the paper and a report to the Honor and Integrity Office: this is plagiarism, or stealing others' ideas and presenting them as your own.

Grading rubric:

	5 pts	3.5-4 pts	0-3 pts
Writing	0-1 error	2-3 errors or awkward phrasing	multiple errors and/or awkward phrasing; poor organization, reader confusion
Fact-gathering	complete, thorough, cited	1-3 obvious facts missed	major holes in problem description
Assumptions	located, alternative options discussed	most assumptions found, 1-2 obvious ones missed	Multiple assumptions missed/misinterpreted
Consequences	all players included, + and - effects, weighting justified	1-3 obvious consequences missed or misinterpreted	only trivial consequences; effects of court ruling rather than initial question
Rights/Duties	all rights/duties paired, accurately interpreted, all pertinent code pts covered	1-3 obvious code points missed; rights/duties inadequately paired	only obvious ones; only rights w/o duties or v.v.; misunderstanding of code point(s)
Virtues	all players included, weighting justified	1-3 virtue aspects missed or misinterpreted	simplistic, unsympathetic, one-sided
Creative Solution	multiple original options put forth, exceptional creativity	two options only	none offered
Handle Objections	thorough answers to all obvious objections	some objections missed or poorly handled	trivial answers and/or trivial objections only

You will not receive a poor grade for presenting an argument with which I do not agree unless you have poorly defended it, and similarly, though I may agree entirely with your sentiments, if you fail to defend your position well you will not earn a good grade.

Oral Presentation Details

The oral presentation should be no more than 25 minutes long (ideally 20 minutes): practice ahead of time to meet this! Each team member should take a turn speaking. Use some sort of visual aids and provide copy to the instructor; PowerPoint is preferred, and electronic copy is best. One should normally figure approximately one slide per minute, not more than two. Do not rely on paper notes; all material you need to remind yourself what to say should be on the slides. Include at a minimum: 1) title slide; 2) outline slide (what will be covered in this talk); 3) conclusion slide. An Introduction and/or Objective slide is often also a good idea. Although references are not required, they significantly enhance your presentation when included. Any figures MUST include reference to their sources, on the same slide. For more guidance, see "How to Credit Properly the Contributions of Others." Grading will concentrate on delivery, completeness of argument and answers to questions; one grade will be given to the whole team.

EECE 590 Assignments

Opinion Papers

#1 Sustainability and Technology