IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013 - 33

up to date in their academic field.
participants also wrote rules
addressing academic honesty, fair
grading, maintaining confidences,
and keeping office hours. In all,
38 provisions were crafted, 28 for
faculty and staff, 13 for students,
and 10 for administration and staff.
(Some applied to more than one
stakeholder.) No effort was made
to generate an exhaustive or systematic code, but the experience
provided insight into the code-writing process.
A second workshop, conducted
a year later, began by discovering
shared values. Organizers felt that
values could provide scaffolding
upon which a more formal code
could be built. To implement this
new approach, they designed four
activities: discussing the pirate
Articles of Agreement [14]; studying existing professional, corporate, and academic codes of ethics;
revisiting the previous year's provisions to outline embodied values; and crafting a list of ADEM
moral values.
Those who criticize codes of
ethics say that they habituate individuals to conformity [13]. To avoid
this, one must begin with a critical frame of mind. In this second
workshop, participants considered
the pirate "Articles of Agreement,"
a document with clearly questionable2 provisions [14]. They discussed three questions: What is
good and bad about the Articles?
What values does it embody? What
functions do its provisions serve in
the pirate community?3 Group discussions resulted in a critical attitude plus insights into how codes
embody values and realize community functions. This, in turn,
suggested a strategy: since rules
embody values, why not start by
2

"If any man rob another he shall have his nose
and ears slit, and be put ashore where he shall be
sure to encounter hardships" [17].
3
Codes perform several functions: educating,
inspiring, promoting dialogue, empowering and
protecting, and disciplining.

getting the values right and then
move to rules.
Next, participants formed small
groups to examine different codes
of ethics, identify their values,
and uncover their functions. The
professional codes used outlined
minimum moral thresholds through

Analyzing a questionable code;
examining existing codes for their
values; benchmarking these values
with those embodied in a previous
draft code; prioritizing and refining the values into a manageable
list-all of these activities contribute to value discovery.

Those who criticize codes of ethics
say that they habituate individuals
to conformity.
"rules of professional conduct" and
then identified aspirations or "ideals of the profession" [12]. The
critical attitude stimulated by the
Articles opened participants to
examining more complex codes.
participants identified values and
summarized their results in plenary presentations.
The provisions developed the
previous year were reintroduced
and regrouped under the values they embodied. For example, provisions that mentioned
responsibility or raised responsibility issues were grouped under
this value. (Several provisions
expressed more than one value.)
When participants compared their
values with those in other codes,
they discovered that their values
were widely circulated through
these different codes.
The next activity proved challenging: How could the growing
list of values identified be culled
into a workable statement? A simple procedure helped. Each participant was allotted five stickers
of different colors; each sticker was
then assigned a different numerical value. Organizers prepared a
comprehensive list of the values
identified. participants then ranked
these by using the stickers provided. The votes were tallied, and
five values were selected: justice/
fairness, responsibility, respect,
trust, and integrity.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

SprING 2013

Translating: Developing
Value Profiles
An outside advisor (an ethicist) was
brought in to develop five value
profiles. Each profile included a
description, a list of characteristics, minimum threshold rules,
and high-level ideals. The profiles
helped a code-writing committee
organize a Statement of Values.
The committee rewrote the value
profiles; several drafts were circulated to allow everyone input.
The result was a formal statement,
a preamble followed by a short
description of each value. The SOV
was formally adopted, and ADEM
embarked on a path of continuous
improvement by periodically testing or challenging its SOV.
The framework presented in
the first part of this article on
value realization helps explain
its positive impact on this community. Discovering values is an
important step toward community
development and improvement;
a community clear on its values
shows more focus and is able to
act concertedly to improve itself.
Translating values allows a community to turn value commitments into actionable policies and
procedures.
Verifying Values
According to Flanagan et al.,
verification, the final stage of the
value-realization process, takes
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Spring 2013