For Engineering and Science
Commentary On
Role-play Instructions
1. Each student is assigned a role a week before the discussion.
2. Student assigned to the role of Trisha Brown serves as the moderator and leads the conversation based on the script below.
3. The script provided below is there to guide the discussion, but you should leave room for the conversation to flow naturally and allow everyone to contribute.
Script for the Role-play
1. What role are you playing in the role-play group discussion? Please state the name, title, and describe the role in your own words (couple of sentences).
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
2. From the perspective of your role, what is your recommendation for Trisha regarding the use of FRT?
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
3. From the perspective of your role, are there alternative solutions you would like to present to Trisha? Why do you think the approach you suggest is good and what are the main barriers to this approach?
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
4. What is your overall group recommendation to Trisha?
[open discussion, anyone can chime in]
One way to ensure students are prepared for the discussion is to assign a few questions from the script as a pre-discussion assignment (short answers). Similarly, to ensure students reflect on the discussion, they can be assigned the last question from the script as a post-discussion exercise. They can also be asked specifically about ethical concepts or concerns related to FRT that have been introduced through the readings.
Extra Assignment - Concept Mapping
Draw a concept map to depict your group's decision. It should include different aspects of technology, applications, stakeholders, and/or other aspects that you considered in your discussion. The map should have between 10-12 concepts or items and should convey how they are related. You can use any medium to create and upload it, ideally as a jpeg. You can take a screenshot or even draw on paper and take a picture and upload it.
Resources to help with concept maps
FRT Code of Ethics, Frameworks and Guidelines
• Ethical Framework for FRT Submitted by the ACLU to the NTIA Multistakeholder Process on Facial Recognition Technology: https://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/aclu_an_ethical_framework_for_face_recognition.pdf
• A. K. Roundtree, "Facial Recognition Technology Codes of Ethics: Content Analysis and Review," 2022 IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (ProComm), Limerick, Ireland, 2022, pp. 211-220, doi: 10.1109/ProComm53155.2022.00045. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9881633
• Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report on “Facial Recognition Technology: Responsible Use Principles and the Legislative Landscape”: https://www.csis.org/analysis/facial-recognition-technology-responsible-use-principles-and-legislative-landscape
Background Readings, Videos, and Other Resources
• Wicker, S. & Ghosh, D. (2020). Reading in the Panopticon: Your Kindle May Be Spying on You, But You Can't Be Sure. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 63 No. 5, Pages 68-73.
• Lanchester, J. (2017). You are the product. London Review of Books. Vol. 39, No. 6.
• ACLU Resource Page on FRT: https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/face-recognition-technology
• Kate Crockford – What you need to know about face surveillance (2019): https://www.ted.com/talks/kade_crockford_what_you_need_to_know_about_face_surveillance?language=en
• Alessandro Acquisti – What will a future without secrets look like? (2013): https://www.ted.com/talks/alessandro_acquisti_what_will_a_future_without_secrets_look_like
• Glenn Greenwald – Why privacy matters (2014): https://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters
• UK Government's Center for Data Ethics and Innovation's Independent report "Snapshot Paper - Facial Recognition Technology" May 2020
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cdei-publishes-briefing-paper-on-facial-recognition-technology/snapshot-paper-facial-recognition-technology
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/905267/Facial_Recognition_Technology_Snapshot_UPDATED.pdf
Authorship and Project Information and Acknowledgements
The scenarios and roles were conceptualized and written by Aditya Johri. Feedback was provided by Ashish Hingle, Huzefa Rangwala, and Alex Monea, who also collaborated on initial implementation and empirical research. This work is partly supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Awards# 1937950, 2335636, 1954556; USDA/NIFA Award# 2021-67021-35329. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The research study associated with the project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at George Mason University.
The scenario enlists students as taskforce members making informed decisions on the safe return to university operations in a post-pandemic world.
Commentary On
Role-play Instructions
1. Each student is assigned a role a week before the discussion.
2. Students assigned to the role of Nina serve as the moderator and lead the conversation based on the script below.
3. The script provided below is there to guide the discussion, but you should leave room for the conversation to flow naturally and allow everyone to contribute.
Role-play script (for Nina)
1. What role are you playing in the role-play group discussion? Please state the name, title, and describe the role in your own words (couple of sentences).
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
2. From the perspective of your role, what do you consider to be the best approach to decide on a loan application – what factors should be considered and how should these factors be weighed (what should get more importance)?
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
3. What decision should Nina take on Yilmaz’s loan: should it be approved or declined? What additional information would you recommend Nina try to obtain in order to make the decision, keeping in mind that there is not much time left to acquire that information?
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
4. What is your overall group recommendation to Nina?
[open discussion, anyone can chime in]
One way to ensure students are prepared for the discussion is to assign a few questions from the script as a pre-discussion assignment (short answers). Similarly, to ensure students reflect on the discussion, they can be assigned the last question from the script as a post-discussion exercise. They can also be asked specifically about concepts or concerns considered in making a loan.
Reflective Exercise
[This can be individual or group]
- What solution was reached following the discussion?
- What criteria were considered to reach this solution?
- Was the solution agreed to by all or did one person have more influence? Why?
- Do you personally agree with the solution reached? Why/Why not?
- Did playing a role help you/change in perspective (before/after the discussion)?
Dataset for Additional Analysis
https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/uciml/german-credit
Lee, M. S. A., & Floridi, L. (2021). Algorithmic fairness in mortgage lending: from absolute conditions to relational trade-offs. Minds and Machines, 31(1), 165-191. (Link to data used: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/hmda/historic-data/)
Frameworks
Klein, A. (2020). Reducing bias in AI based financial services, Brookings Institution.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reducing-bias-in-ai-based-financial-services/
World Bank’s Credit Scoring Approaches Guidance:
https://thedocs.worldbank.org/en/doc/935891585869698451-0130022020/original/CREDITSCORINGAPPROACHESGUIDELINESFINALWEB.pdf
Background Resources
• Susan Etlinger - What do we do with all this big data? TED Talk http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_etlinger_what_do_we_do_with_all_this_big_data
• Cathy O’Neil: The Era of Blind Faith in Big Data Must End TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/cathy_o_neil_the_era_of_blind_faith_in_big_data_must_end?language=en
• Shivani Siroya – A smart loan for people with no credit history (yet) TED Talk https://www.ted.com/talks/shivani_siroya_a_smart_loan_for_people_with_no_credit_history_yet?language=en
• Michael Volpe, "Experts say artificial intelligence contributes to discrimination in lending" July 10, 2019, In The News https://sylviagarcia.house.gov/media/in-the-news/experts-say-artificial-intelligence-contributes-discrimination-lending
• New York Times, Is an Algorithm Less Racist than a loan officer?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/18/business/digital-mortgages.html
• Townson, S. “AI can make bank loans more fair”, HBR (2020)
https://hbr.org/2020/11/ai-can-make-bank-loans-more-fair
• Berg et al., NBER Working Paper, “The rise of FinTechs: Credit scoring using digital footprints” https://www.nber.org/papers/w24551
Authorship and Project Information and Acknowledgements
The scenarios and roles were conceptualized and written by Aditya Johri. Feedback was provided by Ashish Hingle, Huzefa Rangwala, and Alex Monea, who also collaborated on initial implementation and empirical research. This work is partly supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Awards# 1937950, 2335636, 1954556; USDA/NIFA Award# 2021-67021-35329. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The research study associated with the project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at George Mason University.
This scenario asks students to provide recommendations on the use of algorithms and machine learning models to make lending decisions at a bank in
Role-play Instructions
1. Each student is assigned a role a week before the discussion.
2. Students assigned to the role of Brad Jorgensen and/or Kathy Schmidt serve as the moderator and lead the conversation based on the script below.
3. The script provided below is there to guide the discussion, but you should leave room for the conversation to flow naturally and allow everyone to contribute.
Role-play Script (for Brad/Kathy)
1. What role are you playing in the role-play group discussion? Please state the name, title, and describe the role in your own words (couple of sentences).
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
2. From the perspective of your role, how would you respond to Brad and Kathy’s question about why the disaster happened and how it could have been prevented?
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
3. From the perspective of your role, what is your response to Brad and Kathy’s question about how can we ensure future safety and transparency and rebuild trust? Why do you think the approach you suggest is the best approach? What do you think are the main barriers to this approach?
[to be answered by each group members individually and in a sequence]
4. What is your overall group recommendation to Brad/Kathy?
[open discussion, anyone can chime in]
One way to ensure students are prepared for the discussion is to assign a few questions from the script as a pre-discussion assignment (short answers). Similarly, to ensure students reflect on the discussion, they can be assigned the last question from the script as a post-discussion exercise. They can also be asked specifically about ethical concepts or concerns related to safety and transparency.
Ethical Codes and Guidelines
Several different ethical codes or guidelines can be provided to students to prepare for the discussion or to reflect upon during their discussion depending on the students’ disciplinary composition. For instance, for implementation in a computing or technology related course ACM and IEEE guidelines can be more informative and the discussion can be centered largely on the MACS software (how did the algorithm work, why was it implemented, who designed it, why were the pilots not informed about it, etc.).
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics code of ethics:
https://www.aiaa.org/about/Governance/Code-of-Ethics
Airline pilots’ association code of ethics:
https://www.alpa.org/en/about-alpa/what-we-do/code-of-ethics
FAA Ethics of Maintenance:
https://www.faasafety.gov/files/gslac/courses/content/718/2173/HF%20Chapter%2011.pdf
ACM Code of Ethics:
https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics
IEEE Code of Ethics:
https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html
National Society of Professional Engineers code of ethics:
https://www.nspe.org/sites/default/files/resources/pdfs/Ethics/CodeofEthics/NSPECodeofEthicsforEngineers.pdf
Background Readings and Resources
One of the goals of this exercise is to motivate students to undertake their own research on the topic to prepare for the role they are playing. But it is important to provide them with preliminary material to start their own research.
Videos
Wall Street Journal report “How Boeing Rocked the Aviation Industry”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jTN0JD4I5M&feature=youtu.be
Vox’s “The real reason Boeing’s new plane crashed twice”:
https://youtu.be/H2tuKiiznsY
Bloomberg’s “How Boeing Lost Its Way”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EESYomdoeCs
Readings
Johnston, P., & Harris, R. (2019). The Boeing 737 MAX saga: lessons for software organizations. Software Quality Professional, 21(3), 4-12.
Herkert, J., Borenstein, J., & Miller, K. (2020). The Boeing 737 MAX: Lessons for engineering ethics. Science and engineering ethics, 26, 2957-2974.
Travis, G. (2019). How the Boeing 737 Max disaster looks to a software developer. IEEE Spectrum, 18.
A Rebuttal to Travis’ article from ACM Risks Digest: https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/31/21#subj20
Official information provided by Boeing:
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/737max/737-max-software-updates.page
Seattle Times Coverage:
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-737-max-crisis-2019-news-coverage/
The New Yorker (in collaboration with ProPublica):
MacGillis, A. (2019). The Case Against Boeing.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/11/18/the-case-against-boeing
Authorship and Project Information and Acknowledgements
The scenarios and roles were conceptualized and written by Aditya Johri. Feedback was provided by Ashish Hingle, Huzefa Rangwala, and Alex Monea, who also collaborated on initial implementation and empirical research. This work is partly supported by U.S. National Science Foundation Awards# 1937950, 2335636, 1954556; USDA/NIFA Award# 2021-67021-35329. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies. The research study associated with the project was approved by the Institutional Review Board at George Mason University.
This scenario entrusts students to play roles within ATIC to collaboratively discuss how the Boeing 737 Max disaster happened.
In this webinar, Dr.
This teaching module is designed to introduce undergraduate engineering students to the ethics of diversity and inclusion in engineering.
This teaching module is designed to introduce undergraduate engineering students to the ethics of diversity and inclusion in engineering.
This case aims to provide a space to explore and discuss ethical challenges of recognizing student contributions in engineering projects. As engineering students prepare to step into the professional world, early education about what to expect in relation to recognition of their contributions and how to navigate difficult conversations are crucial. In Amir's situation, he contributed to a research project during his internship, yet he faced a dilemma when his efforts were not recognized in ways he expected - i.e., being listed as an author on the resulting publication.
The case prompts undergraduate engineering students to reflect on their contributions, the ethics of authorship, and how these can sometimes be interpreted differently. Through discussions and debates about this case, students are encouraged to explore issues such as: contributions that deserve authorship credit and the involved process to become an author, the difference between authorship and acknowledgement, and the conditions under which inventorship status is granted. By wrestling with these issues and the different perspectives involved, students will be better prepared to navigate similar situations in their engagement with professional environments and develop a deeper understanding of the role of ethics in engineering practices.
Below are discussion tips for the discussion questions.
- Is being employed or being part of a team at the time of the publication a criterion for authorship?
Students can refer to commonly used authorship criteria for engineering students (e.g., AAAS authorship decision tree; Northwestern University authorship guidelines).
- What is the difference between being an author and being recognized in the acknowledgements section?
Students can refer to authorship criteria suggested by their university or other reputable/relevant organizations in specific subfields. Furthermore, they can find a published paper with an acknowledgements section and explore recognized contributions.
- Did Amir’s contributions to the project warrant authorship?
This is a follow-up question to the one above. Students can discuss Amir’s contributions to the project and reference commonly used authorship criteria for engineering students or refer to authorship criteria suggested by their university.
- In case the group decides to register a patent for the new TPMS, does Amir’s contribution qualify him for inventorship? What if the idea of generating power from the tires' rotation was Amir’s?
Students can refer to commonly used inventorship guidelines (e.g., AAAS inventorship guidelines; Northwestern University inventorship guidelines).
- In industrial environments, various publication types other than journal articles and patents could be used for research communication including blog posts, white papers, application notes, technical reports, and case studies. Could Amir share information about the TPMS in a blog or white paper without notifying the R&D center?
Students can engage with codes of ethics for engineers (e.g., the code of ethics provided by the National Society of Professional Engineers) to learn more about violation of confidentiality and intellectual property rights, violation of the terms of non-disclosure agreements, and risks such as damage to the project, possible termination of contract, or a lawsuit against Amir.
- What would you do if you were in Amir’s situation?
Students can propose reviewing the terms of employment or internship agreements, seeking guidance from authorship guidelines and codes of ethics, or reaching out to a supervisory figure at their university for advice.
- How could Amir have prevented this situation?
Students can highlight awareness about authorship and inventorship norms in specific fields, engagement with guidelines, and inquiries about these issues in early stages of the internship.
