• Journal of Engineering Education Research
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 2009

With the rapid development of science and technology and their increased impacts on our society, we witness a growing recognition of the importance of engineers' social responsibility and their professional ethics. Especially, the introduction of EC2000 and ABET into engineering education has been contributed to reinforce the systemization of ethics instruction. However, we could not attain the educational goal of integration of engineering education and ethics by general declaration of its importance. We need to deal with the vital questions how to institutionalize and implement engineering ethics in engineering curriculum. This article focuses on three aspects. First, it mainly outlines the developments and the traits of engineering education in American universities. Second, by classifying the engineering ethics education into several patterns, we discuss the characteristics and implications according to those Patterns. Third, it is helpful to explore the way how we could apply these patterns to Korean engineering education. It is expected to combine the stand-alone engineering ethics lectures with ethics -across -the -curriculum considering each university's circumstances and resources. Still, many challenges remain, most notably the need for engineering faculty and non-engineering faculty to cooperate and accept for engineering ethics education.