Developed an ethics case study? Share it with us!

Have you developed a case study that you use in your ethics course?

Have you and a group of friends acted out a case study looking at ethical issues in scientific research?

Do you think you could write a case based on recent stories in the media?

We are looking to collect ethics case studies that have been developed by faculty, students, and instructors to be included in the Case Study Collection of the Ethics Education Library. This collection -which already includes over three hundred cases- is meant to be a clearinghouse for students, instructors, and researchers interested in finding ethics cases to use in workshops, presentations, or in the classroom.

We are interest in cases from all areas of professional ethic including the sciences, social sciences, medicine, arts, and the humanities.

Please email Kelly Laas, the librarian of CSEP, with any cases or questions you may have.

Ethics Bowl Reginal Cases

The regional cases for the APPE Ethics Bowl have now been posted!

The Ethics Bowl combines the excitement and fun of a competitive tournament with a valuable educational experience for undergraduate students. In the fall of 2009, ten regional ethics bowls will take place throughout the United States. In February 2010, the top scoring teams in the ten regional ethics bowls (32 total) will compete at the national championship of the IEB in Cincinnati, Ohio at the nineteenth Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE).

For more information on how to participate in a regional ethics bowl competition,and information about the locations and dates of these competitions,please visit APPE's Ethics Bowl page.

Ethics Education Library

CSEP is pleased to announce a new resource for educators interested in incorporating professional ethics in their courses and grant proposals. The Ethics Education Library is a collection of resources for scholars and university administrators interested in developing ethics training and instruction programs for undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students. It includes seminal articles on how to go about teaching ethics, examples of what other educators and universities have done in the past, evaluation and assessment techniques, and an ever-expanding Case Study Collection searchable by topic, discipline, and author.

We are currently in the beginning stages of developing this resource, so please let us know of materials and cases you think should be included in the Ethics Education Library, or ways in which we can improve the site!

This project has been made possible through a generous grant from the National Science Foundation. Please also take a look at the beta version of the new and improved Online Ethics Center,that is also being developed through this grant project.

Welcome to Our New Web Site!

CSEP has a new web site! The site includes all of the resources found on our old site, with a number of new additions, including an expanded Ethics Across the Curriculum section, updated Resource Guides, and access to the full text of many publications by CSEP faculty and fellows.

We are still working on perfecting the site, so please contact us at csep@iit.edu if you run into any bugs, or have any suggestions!

Case Study Video

Asked to prepare a presentation on some of the ethical issues faced in adviser/student relationships, Dylan Erb and Hector Baez, participants in an Illinois Institute of Technology's Research Experience for Undergraduates, created the following video case study. The video elicited a lively discussion among students and faculty, and also has a great sound track (especially if you are a fan of Johnny Cash).

The Graduate Student Laborer

This NSF REU at Illinois Institute for Technology is a 10 week program for undergraduate students the multidisciplinary field of hybrid electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. The objectives of the program are to train undergraduate students in basic research through challenging HEV/PHEV-related engineering projects performed with research mentors from IIT, expose them to the broader impacts of their research with lectures from experts and tours of facilities and integrate ethics discussions and training into all aspects of the student experience. CSEP has been participating in a weekly meeting on ethical issues in research.

Thanks to Dylan and Hector for sharing their video!

Participate in our Survey!

You are invited to assist in developing an online resource for Principal Investigators and university administrators looking to incorporate an ethics component in National Science Foundation grant proposals. This resource would focus on ethics education in the areas of engineering, science, technology, and the social sciences. Your thoughts and suggestions are crucial in helping us develop this web site.

This web resource is in part a response to a new mandate in the America COMPETES Act passed by Congress in 2007 which requires,

“…each institution that applies for financial assistance from the Foundation for science and engineering research or education describe in its grant proposal a plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers participating in the proposed research project.” (42 U.S.C 1962o-1, Section 7009)

This proposed web site would assist Principal Investigators and university administrators in responding to this new mandate.

The following questions focus on the types of resources you may have used in the past to develop ethics instruction methods and programs, and the types of information you would like to find in a web site of this kind.

This project is a collaborative effort between the Center for Engineering, Ethics, and Society at the National Academy of Engineering and the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology. For more information about the project, please contact Kelly Laas at laas@iit.edu.

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete.


Click Here to take survey

CSEP to Develop New Resource on Ethics Education

The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions is collaborating with the National Academy of Engineering in a grant proposal to develop a web resource for Principle Investigators (PIs) and university administrators looking to incorporate an ethics component in NSF proposals. This web resource is in part a response to a new mandate put out in the America COMPETES Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C 1962o-1) which requires, in Section 7009 that “each institution that applies for financial assistance from the Foundation for science and engineering research or education describe in its grant proposal a plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research to undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers participating in the proposed research project.

Results from this project will make good practices and materials widely available and accessible and help the development of a broad-based, knowledgeable social network in ethics education in science and engineering. Special attention will be paid to resources by and for populations that are underrepresented in science and engineering, and to issues that arise for them and from the increasingly globalized and interdisciplinary nature of research. Publicity about the project will be disseminated broadly, through National Academies’ press releases, websites, and publications, and at relevant meetings of professional societies and academic organizations, including those of special relevance to underrepresented populations.