Existing Ethi{CS} work has shown that ethics can be embedded meaningfully into individual computer science units. This project asks the next question: what common design principles make those units work, and can those principles help other instructors create or revise their own units?
Across Robotics, Computer Organization, and Algorithms, the project develops exemplar technical-ethical units spanning introductory to advanced computing and several levels of technical abstraction. In each, students encounter unsolvable problems and irreducible tensions. They make explicit ethical commitments, connect those commitments to technical choices, and communicate or revise their reasoning throughout the project.
The goal is for ethical reasoning to be present, unavoidable, and visible enough to be assessed through students’ moral perception, reasoning, responsiveness, technical-ethical alignment, and communication. Throughout, the instructor evaluates engagement with the technical-ethical process while welcoming a plurality of ethical conclusions.
During 2026 – 27, the units will be piloted and the framework revised. The evaluation asks whether students increasingly see technical and ethical decision-making as integrated, whether design justifications change after the technical-ethical unit, and whether reasoning develops across a unit. The longer-term aim is assessing usability of the framework to help instructors create, revise, or retrofit technical projects with limited additional instructor effort.
