Partnering with industry to promote ethical business practices in a capstone design course

Efforts to increase student awareness of ethical business conduct within a senior-level capstone design course through interaction with two major engineering corporations, Northrop Grumman and Sun Microsystems, are described. With the help from leaders within Sun Microsystems´ Business Conduct Office and Northrop Grumman´s Ethics and Business Conduct Office, an exercise within the senior-level engineering capstone design sequence was developed based upon corporate training materials and their feedback-based assessment. The exercise included a 10-question assessment instrument that was modeled after the industry approach and used similar content. These topics and standards were used within the professional practice portion of a capstone design course, augmenting the traditional professional ethics coverage taken by the students in a course devoted to engineering ethics.