In this project the PI, who is an attorney whose principle legal focus is computer-related law and also a widely known author on software quality control, will develop learning units that focus on topics of such active public interest that there is ongoing, rapid change in the laws that provide context for discussions of the associated professional ethics issues. Examples include whistle-blowing; reverse engineering; investigation of security vulnerabilities in running systems; and conflicts of interest and intellectual property rights associated with university laboratories and faculty-owned businesses that commercialize university-developed research. While all of the topics to be covered in these learning units are important for software engineering, a number of them are also significant for other engineering areas. Each topic can be studied in terms of ethics issues that the student might face while conducting research as a student, or later as a faculty member (supervising research students) or engineer (working in industry). Materials will be developed in a modular manner, so that they can be easily customized for other areas later on as needed. Each learning unit will provide: video lectures and slides; background briefing papers, including a literature review that explains the engineering and engineering ethics issues to the law-specialist reader and another review that explains the legal issues to the engineering reader; study guide questions; grading suggestions in a restricted-access website for instructors; suggestions for in-class activities; and guidance for the student who will search the legal and engineering literature to gain the most current information on the issues covered in this learning unit. This multimedia blended approach to learning, wherein students watch video-based lectures before coming to class and class time is spent on instructor-guided activities that have obvious relevance or application, is already in use at Florida Tech; it has the advantage of being suitable both for classroom instruction and web-based instruction. Initial feedback has been provided by a coalition of universities, corporations and independent trainers; whose ongoing input will guide the current project. Members of the PI's team for this project include an expert in computer security (especially the study of mobile malicious code), an expert in reverse engineering and program comprehension, and two experts on assessment.
Broader Impacts: The learning units developed in this project will be published electronically at the project website and made available to the public under a Creative Commons license that allows free distribution and customization. They will also be submitted to peer-reviewed course collection sites such as MERLOT.org and well-indexed academic journals, and publicized via conferences and mailing lists. Based on past experience the PI is confident that as the project provides materials of value and builds credibility, external instructors and subject matter experts will adopt and use the materials, and provide additional detailed feedback that can be used to refine and improve their content. Collaboration with external colleagues in a focused manner relating to specific individual learning units will be an inherent part of this work.
