Fostering Professionalism

5.5 Fostering Professionalism

The issues highlighted in the previous sections have led many professional societies to develop committees, professional programs, codes of ethics and professional practice, and other related benefits for their constituencies. These programs help practitioners understand expected standards of professional conduct and the expectation among member practitioners.

5.5.1 Professional ethical codes

These codes also provide public information concerning the precepts considered central to the profession. These codes provide a level playing field for professionals with the prospects of avoiding ethical dilemmas whenever possible and helping professionals “do the right thing” when faced with ethical decision making during their course of professional practice. In computing, these codes are often binding upon the members of a society and they provide guidance in helping professionals make decisions affecting their practice.

ACM, IEEE, AITP, and other organizations promote the development of professional responsibility in several ways. • They develop and promote codes of ethics to which members must adhere. These codes, in general, promote honesty, integrity, maintenance of high standards of quality, leadership, support of the public

interest, and lifelong learning. [ACM, IEEE, AITP, SEEPP] • They sponsor established subgroups such as the Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (SIGCAS) and the Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) that focus directly on ethical and

professional issues [SIGCAS, SSIT]. • They develop and refine curricular guidelines such as the ones in this report and its predecessors.

• They participate in the development of accreditation guidelines that ensure the inclusion of professional

practice in the curriculum. • They support the formation of student chapters that encourage students to develop a mature attitude toward professional practice. • They provide opportunities for lifelong professional development through technical publications, conferences, and tutorials.

Some of these professional codes include the following. • National Society of Professional Engineers - NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers [NSPE, 2003] • Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE): IEEE Code of Ethics [IEEE, 1990]

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM): ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct [ACM,

1992] • ACM/IEEE-Computer Society: Software Engineering Code of Ethics and Professional Practice [ACM/IEEECS, 1999] • International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP): Harmonization of Professional Standards and also Ethics of Computing [IFIP, 1998] • Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP): AITP Code of Ethics and the AITP Standards of Conduct [AITP, 2002]

Computer engineers can use the codes of these societies to guide them to make decisions in their engineering careers.

5.5.2 Education and professional practice

CE programs should inform both students and society about what they can and should expect from people professionally trained in the computing disciplines. Students, for example, need to understand the importance of professional conduct on the job and the ramifications of negligence. They also need to recognize that the professional societies, through their established subgroups emphasizing professional practice and their codes of ethics, can provide a support network that enables them to stand up for what is ethically and professionally right. By laying the groundwork for this support network as part of a four-year program, students can avoid the sense of isolation that young professionals often feel and be well equipped to practice their profession in a mature and ethical way.

Although tenets of professional practice focus on the particular purposes of a society, common themes pervade all of them. Fundamental to all professional practice are the responsibilities of the computing and engineering professional to the public and to the public good. Additionally, professional practice and related ethical codes address issues of conflicts of interest, scope of competence, objectiveness and truthfulness, deception, and professional conduct.

The precepts delineated within professional practice should be the hallmark of all practicing computer engineers. Computer engineers should adopt the tenets of professional practices in all the work they do. It is incumbent upon educational programs to educate computer engineers to embrace these tenets for the benefit of their own careers and for the benefit of the computing, the engineering professions, and humanity.