Software engineering professionalism

For many years, software engineering has been trying to be a profession.This was hampered by the common perception that it is merely the application of computer science. The goal of making software engineering into its own profession spurred a great deal of debate about what it means to be a profession. Currently, software engineering has been granted the distinction of being a designated professional engineering discipline in Texas, in the US, and many provinces in Canada.

To claim to be a profession, software engineering needs to be widely recognized as such. Such things are having undergraduate degrees, licences that are recognized by state governments, their own codes of ethics, and so on are symbols of that recognition.

History

In the US during the mid-1990s, the National Society of Professional Engineers sued in all states in the US to prohibit anyone from using the term software engineer as a noun or field of employment Fact|date=February 2007. They won in most (48?) states Fact|date=February 2007.

In response, the IEEE and ACM began a joint effort called JCESEP in 1993, which evolved into SWECC in 1998 to explore making software engineering into a profession. Both committees used traditional engineering model. The ACM pulled out of SWECC (in May 1999), objecting to its support for the Texas professionalization efforts, of having state licenses for software engineers. The IEEE continued to support making software engineering a branch of traditional engineering.

In Canada the Canadian Information Processing Society established the Information Systems Professional certification process. Also, by the late 90's (1999 in British Columbia) the discipline of software engineering as a professional engineering discipline was officially created. This has caused some disputes between the provincial engineering associations and companies who call their developers software engineers, even though these developers have not been licenses by any engineering association. http://www.peo.on.ca/enforcement/Software_engineering_page.html

In 1999, the Panel of Software Engineering was formed as part of the settlement between Engineering Canada and the Memorial University of Newfoundland over the school's use of the term software engineering in the name of a computer science program. Concerns were raised over inappropriate use of the name software engineering to describe non-engineering programs could lead to student and public confusion, and ultimately threaten public safety. http://www.engineerscanada.ca/e/pub_ceo_01_02.cfm

Ethics

Software engineering ethics is a large field. In some ways it began as an unrealistic attempt to define bugs as unethical. More recently it has been defined as the application of both computer science and engineering philosophy, principles, and practices to the design and development of software systems. Due to this engineering focus and the increased use of software in mission critical and human critical systems, where failure can result in large losses of capital but more importantly lives such as the Therac-25 system, many ethical codes have been developed by a number of societies, associations and organizations. These entities (such as the ACM, IEEE, [http://www.apeg.bc.ca/ APEGBC] , and [http://www.iccp.org/ Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals (ICCP)] ) have formal codes of ethics. Adherence to the code of ethics is required as a condition of membership or certification. According to the ICCP, violation of the code can result in revocation of the certificate. Also, all engineering society require conformance to their ethical codes; violation of the code results in the revocation of the license to practice engineering in the society's jurisdiction

These codes of ethics usually have much in common. They typically relate the need to act consistently with the client's interest, employer's interest, and most importantly the public's interest. They also outline the need to act with professionalism and to promote an ethical approach to the profession.

A [http://www.acm.org/serving/se/code.htm Software Engineering Code of Ethics] has been approved by the ACM and the IEEE-CS as the standard for teaching and practicing software engineering.

Examples of Codes of Conduct

The following are examples of Codes of conduct for Professional Engineers. These 2 have been chosen because both jurisdictions have a designation for Professional Software Engineers.

" [http://www.apeg.bc.ca/ Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia(APEGBC)] "

All members in the association's code of Ethics must ensure that government, the public can rely on BC's professional engineers and Geoscientists to act at all time with fairness, courtesy and good faith to their employers, employee and customers, and to uphold the truth, honesty and trustworthiness, and to safe guard human life and environment. This is just one of the many ways in which BC’s Professional Engineers and Professional Geoscientists maintain their competitive edge in today’s global marketplace.

" [http://www.apegga.com Association of Professional Engineers, Geoscientists and Geophysicists of Alberta(APEGGA)] "

Different with British Columbia, the Alberta Government granted self governance to engineers, Geoscientists and geophysicists. All memnerbs in the APEGGA has to accept legal and ethical responsibility for the work and to hold the interest of the public and society. The APEGGA is a standards guideline of professional practice to uphold the protection of public interest for engineering, Geoscientists and geophysics in Alberta.

Interesting comments regarding software engineering:

Bill Joy argued that "better software" can only enable its privileged end users, make reality more power-pointy as opposed to more humane, and ultimately run away with itself so that "the future doesn't need us." He openly questioned the goals of software engineering in this respect, asking why it isn't trying to be more ethical rather than more efficient.

Lawrence Lessig argued that computer code can regulate conduct in much the same way as the legal code.

Both of these comments show the express need to think about the consequences of the software being developed. Not only in a functional way but also in how it affects the public and society as a whole.

Overall, due to the youth of software engineering, many of the ethical codes and values have been borrowed from other fields, such as mechanical and civil engineering. However, there are many ethical questions that even these, much older, disciplines have not encountered. Questions about the ethical impact of internet applications, which have a global reach, have never been encountered until recently and other ethical questions are still to be encountered. This means the ethical codes for software engineering are a work in progress, that will change and update as more questions arise.

Professional Responsibilities in Developing Software

Who’s Responsible?

• The developers work with client and user to define requirement and specify what the whole purpose of system do. Once system is built, if there is any accidents happened, such as harms or kill someone physically, who is responsible?

• If there is an independent QA team does integration testing and did not discover a citical fault in the system after testing is complete, who is ethically responsible for damage caused by that fault?

Responsibilities for Engineering and Geoscience Software

Developing software is an highly risky proposition. The software development process is a complex undertaking comprised of specifying, designing, implementing, and testing. Any small mistake or fault will cause the unlimited damage to society. Professional Members contribute to the success of software development projects. However, Association of Professional Engineering and Geoscience is primarily concerned with their responsibility for minimizing the risk of failure and protecting the public interest.

http://www.apegga.com/pdf/Guidelines/32.pdf

Licensing

The National Society of Professional Engineers provides a model law and lobbies legislatures to adopt licensing regulations. The model law requires:(1) a four-year degree from a university program accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Committee (EAC) of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET),(2) an eight-hour examination on the fundamentals of engineering (FE) usually taken in the senior year of college,(3) four years of acceptable experience,(4) a second examination on principles and practice, and(5) written recommendations from other professional engineers.Some states require continuing education.

Donald Bagert of Texas became the first professional software engineer in the U.S. on September 4, 1998 or October 9, 1998. As of May 2002, Texas had issued 44 professional engineering licenses for software engineers.

Rochester Institute of Technology granted the first Software Engineering bachelor’s degrees in 2001. Other universities have followed.

Professional licensing has been criticized for many reasons.
* Software engineers would have to study years of calculus, physics, and chemistry to pass the exams, which is irrelevant to most software practitioners. Many (most?) computer science majors don't earn degrees in engineering schools, so they are probably unqualified to pass engineering exams.
* In Canada, most people who earn professional software engineering licenses study software engineering, computer engineering or electrical engineering. Many times these people already qualified to become professional engineers in their own fields but choose to be licensed as software engineers to differentiate themselves from computer scientists.
* In British Columbia, The Limited Licence is granted by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia. Fees are collected by "APEGBC" for the Limited Licence.

Licensing and Certification Exams

The IEEE offers the Certified Software Development Professional certification exam. A group of experts from industry and academia developed the exam and maintain it. Donald Bagert heads the certification committee. Contents of the exam center around the SWEBOK (Software Engineering Body of Knowledge) guide. The motivation was to produce a structure at an international level for software engineering’s knowledge areas. [Moore, Melody M. (2003). A License to Practice Software Engineering. "IEEE Software", 20(3), 112-113.]

For more information, see:

*http://se.uwaterloo.ca/~jmatlee/talks/kwsqa02.pdf
*http://www.faqs.org/faqs/engineering/pe-eit-exam/ Apr 10, 2002
*http://www.sdmagazine.com/documents/s=746/sdm0003g/0003g.htm
*ACM position on licensing of software engineers, http://www.acm.org/serving/se_policy/
*http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~jck/publications/cacm.2002.pdf

Right to Practice in Ontario

A person must be granted the “professional engineer” license to have the right to practice professional software engineering in Ontario.To become licensed by Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO), you must:(1) Be at least 18 years of age. (2) Be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada. (3) Be of good character. You will be requested to answer questions and make a written declaration on your application form to test your ethics.(4) Meet PEO’s stipulated academic requirements for licensure. (5) Pass the Professional Practice Examination.(6) Fulfill engineering work experience requirements.

Excerpt taken from [http://www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/english/working/career/professions/engineers.shtml GOV.ON.CA]

Software Engineering (SEng) Guidelines by Canadian Province:

[http://www.apeg.bc.ca/ British Columbia] [http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/english/statutes/statutes/E9-3.pdf Saskatchewan] [http://www.apegm.mb.ca/keydocs/ethics/cedocs/ethics00.pdf Manitoba] [http://www.peo.on.ca/Ethics/code_of_ethics.html Ontario] [http://www2.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/dynamicSearch/telecharge.php?type=2&file=%2F%2FI_9%2FI9R3_A.htm Quebec] [http://www.napegg.nt.ca/about.htm NWT]

‘Engineer’ in Canada is restricted because it requires you to have graduated from an engineering programme, per se. Some Universities’ “software engineering” programmes are under the engineering faculty and therefore qualify (i.e. Waterloo). Others, such as UToronto have “software engineering” in the computer science faculty which does not qualify. This distinction has to do with the way the profession is regulated. Degrees in “Engineering” must be accredited by a national panel and have certain specific requirements to allow the graduate to pursue a career as a professional engineer. Computer Science degrees, even those with specialties in software engineering, do not have to meet these requirements so the computer science departments can generally teach a wider variety of topics and students can graduate without specific courses required to pursue a career as a professional engineer.

Notes and references

See also

* Software engineering
* List of software engineering topics
* Software engineering demographics
* Software engineering economics

* [http://www.tbpe.state.tx.us/nm/sofupdt.htm Professional licensing in Texas]
* [http://www.acm.org/serving/se/code.htm SE Code of Ethics]