The compleat software engineering professional-doing the right thing as well as doing it right: five steps on the road to an ethics curriculum

Abstract

A professional has two basic obligations-to do things right for their clients, and at the same time to do the right thing by society. For the software engineering professional, the quality agenda of sound methodological practice has come to the fore in recent years, but the concept of ethical behaviour, while present in the profession, has not appeared as often in software engineering curricula. This paper addresses this imbalance, and proposes a five stage process for the incorporation of ethics studies in software engineering education.