Moral Imagination, Invention and Design

这项建议的目标是将工程、科学和技术的伦理和社会层面纳入工程教育和实践的核心。为了实现这些目标，这项提案将在弗吉尼亚大学(UVA)设立伦理、政策和系统工程专业的永久毕业生选项。这一选项将包括与伦斯勒理工学院(RPI)科学与技术研究(STS)研究生课程的紧密联系。这一选修课的研究生将与教师合作，开发用于本科工程学和STS课程的案例研究。这些案例将补充现有案例，这些案例侧重于道德想象力在复杂技术系统设计中的作用。所有这些案例都将放在网上，至少有两个将以实验性的多媒体格式放在网上，这将使教师更容易在全国范围内使用它们。该项目还将对备选方案和案例进行评价，以作为评价类似努力的范本。为了创建案例研究，学生们将进行结合系统工程、伦理学和STS的研究。这项研究将比案例研究所需的更深入，从而产生学术专著和毕业论文。在三年资助期结束时，项目团队将发布一份报告，描述制定这一选择的过程，以便其他人能够从所学到的经验中受益，该计划可以作为概念的证明，即伦理、STS和工程教育可以在研究生和本科生层面上整合。

The goal of this proposal is to integrate ethical and social dimensions of engineering, science and technology into the core of engineering education and practice. To achieve these goals, this proposal will develop a permanent graduate option in Ethics, Policy and Systems Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVa). This option will include strong links to the Science and Technology Studies (STS) graduate program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Graduate students in this option, in collaboration with faculty, will develop case studies for use in undergraduate engineering and STS classes. These cases will complement existing cases that focus on the role of moral imagination in the design of complex technological systems. All of these cases will be placed on the Web, and at least two will be put in experimental multimedia formats that will make it easier for instructors to utilize them nationwide. The project will also conduct an evaluation of the option and the cases that will serve as a model for evaluations of similar efforts. To create the case studies, students will conduct research that combines systems engineering, ethics and STS. This research will be done in greater depth than necessary for the case studies, resulting in scholarly monographs and graduate theses. At the end of the three-year funding period, the project team will publish a report describing the process of developing this option so that others can benefit from the lessons learned and the program can serve as proof-of-concept that ethics, STS and engineering education can be integrated at the graduate and undergraduate levels.