SDEST: Software Engineering Code of Ethics

Illinois Institute Of Technology, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Especially at this time of rapidly changing institutions, the normative claims of professions raise interesting and important questions to explore. In 1993, the world's two largest associations of those who design, develop, test, and maintain software (the IEEE Computer Society and the Association of Computing Machinery) formed a joint committee to organize "software engineering" as a profession. A product of that effort is a "Code of Ethics and Professional Practice" adopted by both IEEE-CS and ACM late in 1998. The writing of the code, carried out in substantial part by e-mail, has produced a record of the writing of a professional code that is far fuller than that of any other, though much of that record is now in danger of being lost. Using interviews as well as retrieving electronic information, the project will create a publicly acccessible electronic archive of all e-mail, memos, and interviews it can obtain relating to the writing of the code. That record, together with additional materials, including the interviews with participants, will form the basis for a a book length study of the drafting, debate, and ultimate adoption of the code. This research can help to engender a more sophisticated conception of profession with respect to normative and ethical issues. The project involves a team of researchers including several graduate students at two institutions, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP), of Illinois Institute of Technology, with the Software Engineering Ethics Research Institute (SEERI), of East Tennessee State University. An advisory board provides additional expertise to the project.