UAS Media Release by UOW
The University of Wollongong’s Faculty of
Engineering places a great emphasis on ensuring soft skills are embedded into
their undergraduate Engineering courses. Staff responsible for engineering
ethics education at UOW, have developed educational approaches which encourage
students to consider the complexity of ethical dilemmas they will encounter in
the workforce. UOW engineering students are supported in developing engineering
ethics skills that have a distinct strength toward intercultural competency. The
link between ethics, culture and social responsibility is well developed with
some students even graduating from the Faculty with a Social Policy major in
Information Technology.
In understanding the tension between Unmanned
Aerial Systems (UAS) and Drones, students are provided with contextual case
studies from which to form personal judgements about the value of different
technologies. In essence it is ‘engineering-in-context’ that provides the
litmus test for whether or not the application of a technology will be
beneficial to society or is likely to cause harm to society. The context for
deploying a drone for instance, may be informed by social policies, geo-political
processes, and economic systems of state.
Historically, UOW has had researchers who
have researched and built first generation UASs for “search and rescue” as far
back as 2001. Students are exposed to a variety of scenarios and case studies
that show how some risks can be curbed by building in technical limitations to an
innovation. In other contexts, regulations and licensing may be entirely absent
requiring students to think about how new guidelines might be established for
the safe use of UASs in a public airspace.
As complexity continues to rise with highly
interconnected systems of a non-homogeneous nature and society’s demands for
service growth, the focus on non-technical areas of engineering education are
essential. Culture inextricably impacts what is considered to be socially
responsible and ethical in everyday life.
