Software engineering professionalism regards software engineering's struggle to be considered as a profession. It was hampered by the common perception that it's merely the application of computer science. The goal of making software engineering into its own profession spurred a great deal of debate about what is a profession.
Currently, software engineering has been granted the distinction of being a designated professional engineering discipline in Texas, in the US, Australia[1](since 2001), 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.
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In 1993 the IEEE and ACM began a joint effort called JCESEP, which evolved into SWECC in 1998 to explore making software engineering into a profession. 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. ACM determined that the state of knowledge and practice in software engineering was too immature to warrant licensing, and that licensing would give false assurances of competence even if the body of knowledge were mature.[2] 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.[3]
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.[4]
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, APEGBC[5] and Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals (ICCP)[6] 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 societies 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 Software Engineering Code of Ethics[7] has been approved by the ACM and the IEEE-CS as the standard for teaching and practicing software engineering.
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.
Interesting comments regarding software engineering:
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.
Who’s Responsible?
Responsibilities for Engineering and Geoscience Software
The National Society of Professional Engineers provides a model law and lobbies legislatures to adopt licensing regulations. The model law requires:
Some states require continuing education.
In Texas 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.[2]
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.[11][12]
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:
A person must be granted the “engineer” license to have the right to practice professional software engineering in Quebec. To become licensed by the Quebec order of engineers (in french : Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec - OIQ), you must:
"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.