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14 units · 34 lessons

Professional Practices

Professional Practices from the first idea to exam level: every lesson builds on the one before, with a worked example, a step-through diagram where it helps, a quick check and practice that adapts to what you know. Follows Jennings, Business Ethics; Harris, Engineering Ethics.

Professional Practices at a glance

What does Professional Practices cover?

Professionalism & Ethics Foundations, Moral Development & Decision-Making, Utilitarianism, Kant & Rights, Justice & Fairness, Virtue Ethics & Ethics of Care, Professional Codes of Conduct, Workplace Ethics & Whistleblowing, Confidentiality, Privacy & Data Ethics, Technology & AI Ethics, Sustainability & CSR, Global & Cross-Cultural Ethics, Risk & Accountability and Applied Ethical Decisions. It follows Jennings, Business Ethics; Harris, Engineering Ethics.

How many lessons does the Professional Practices course on Studious have?

14 units and 34 lessons, from "What professional practice means" to "Cases: data breach, end-of-life care and plagiarism". Each lesson has a worked example, a quick check and practice that adapts to what you know, and many have step-by-step diagrams.

Course outline

  1. Unit 1 · Weeks 1–2

    Professional practices and the foundations of ethics

    1. What professional practice means
    2. Why ethics builds trust
    3. Morality, ethics and relativism
  2. Unit 2 · Week 3

    Moral development and ethical decision-making

    1. Kohlberg's six stages
    2. Rest's four-component model
    3. Why good people make bad choices
  3. Unit 3 · Week 4

    Utilitarianism, Kant and rights

    1. Utilitarianism: weighing costs and benefits
    2. Kant: duty and the categorical imperative
    3. Rights: negative, positive and Nozick's objection
  4. Unit 4 · Week 5

    Justice and fairness

    1. Distributive justice and Rawls
    2. Retributive and compensatory justice at work
  5. Unit 5 · Week 6

    Virtue ethics and the ethics of care

    1. Aristotle and moral character
    2. The ethics of care
  6. Unit 6 · Week 7

    Professional codes of conduct

    1. The ACM Code of Ethics
    2. IEEE and the Software Engineering Code
    3. Codes in other professions
  7. Unit 7 · Week 8

    Workplace ethics and responsibilities

    1. Organisational culture and employee duties
    2. Whistleblowing and conflict resolution
  8. Unit 8 · Week 9

    Confidentiality, privacy and data ethics

    1. Confidentiality, NDAs and research data
    2. GDPR and cybersecurity responsibilities
  9. Unit 9 · Week 10

    Technology and AI ethics

    1. Algorithmic bias and AI privacy
    2. Intellectual property in software
    3. Automation, ethical hacking and cybercrime
  10. Unit 10 · Week 11

    Environmental and sustainability ethics

    1. Corporate social responsibility
    2. SDGs, climate justice and green technology
  11. Unit 11 · Week 12

    Globalization and cross-cultural ethics

    1. Ethics across cultures
    2. Global codes and labour standards
  12. Unit 12 · Week 13

    Risk management and accountability

    1. Assessing risk and ethical leadership
    2. Complicity and accountability mechanisms
  13. Unit 13 · Week 14

    Integrating ethical frameworks

    1. Combining utility, rights, justice and care
    2. Decision-making models and the case study method
  14. Unit 14 · Weeks 15–16

    Contemporary challenges and applied case studies

    1. Social media, remote work, politics and crises
    2. Cases: corporate fraud and the duty to warn
    3. Cases: data breach, end-of-life care and plagiarism

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