The Oral Exam Rationale

• The exam questions should cover all the activities of SENG4921 this semester.
• Adequate preparation for this examination requires a student to be familiar with a signicant number of the lectures and the content of the seminar discussions.
• Each student has an opportunity to prepare his or her own question.
• The examination format attempts to give a wide base to this assessment, even though the actual assessment session will be very short. We think this makes this a good assessment instrument.
• By revealing questions 2 & 3, and the basis for the question 1, it is hoped that the stress of this type of assessment is minimised. The only unknowns in this exam are the actual questions to be answered in questions 2 & 3.

The Oral Exam Format

The oral examination for each student will be scheduled as 15 minutes within a 20 minute slot. There will be three (3) questions; each question to be answered in 5 minutes. The three questions will be as follows:

Question 1: free choice

Each student should prepare a topic of their own free choice concerned with some aspect of SE professional issues or ethics. This could be |but does not have to be| based on, or derived from, the discussions, seminars, debates, student run seminars and lectures given this semester. The question should be broad enough to not overlap with the other two questions. At the examination the student will be asked to present his/her topic and discussion.

If the free choice question deals directly with one of the Seminar or Lecture questions, then this will generally eliminate that question if one of the randomly chosen 3 for question 2 or 3. Note carefully that the elimination occurs after the random choice, not before.

Question 2: based on Seminars

A discussion of one question chosen randomly from a set of questions on the seminar discussion topics. The set of topics will be nalised before the end of the semester.

Question 3: based on Lectures

A discussion of one question chosen randomly from a set of questions that will be nalised before the end of the semester.

Question choice

The question for questions 2 & 3 will be chosen as follows:

1. Three (3) question numbers will be chosen randomly (from a deck of cards) by the student.
2. One of the three questions is chosen by the student, or
3. All three questions are rejected and the student chooses another three questions and answers one question for half marks.

Rules

• The timing of the examination is critical; answers must not be longer than 5 minutes. Answers longer than 5 minutes will be terminated.
• Students may bring any reference material to the exam. However, students will be expected to only consult notes and not to read answers. Completely read answers will not be considered satisfactory.
• It must be emphasised that this exam is an oral exam and will be assessed accordingly. The exam is not a discussion or question and answer activity. During the answering of questions, the only person talking will be the student.

What makes a good answer?

The examiners will be looking for:

• clear identication of the issues;
• analysis of the professional and/or ethical consequences;
• careful presentation of the outcomes.

There are no correct answers, but a good answer will give a clear indication of consequences and issues.

A good answer will draw on lessons learnt from lectures, seminars and discussion during the semester.

Material allowed in the exam

Student may bring notes or cards into the examination. However, these notes should be used to prompt. The answer should not be read from the notes/cards.

Q1: Free choice

Q2: Seminar Questions

1. 1. Give a description of what is generally understood by \Engineering" as a profession.
   2. Present arguments for why Software Engineering can and cannot claim to be an engineering profession.
   3. Give your own resolution of the arguments in (b).
2. Select any case studied this semester, or select any case of your choosing. Analyse the chosen case according to each of the ACM, IEEE and ACS codes of ethics.

   At the exam you will be asked to present your analysis of the case according to one of the codes of ethics selected by the examiners.

3. Discuss the professional and ethical issues raised by the Therac 25 case.
4. Describe the technical issues and problems in the Therac 25 case.
5. Briey present Rawl's ethical principles as presented in the paper How good is good enough?, and demonstrate the application of those principles to a case, other than the case discussed in the paper.
6. Take an important character in the Killer Robot story, such as George Cuzzins, Randy Samuels, or Cindy Yardley, and evaluate his or her performance according to each of the \more specic professional responsibilities" listed in the ACM Code of Ethics.
7. Discuss the organisational and development process issues that led to the accident in the Killer Robot story.
8. Discuss IP issues and the arguments presented in the paper, Against intellectual property, give arguments both for and against Intellectual Property.
9. Dataveillance: Describe the two types of data surveillance, give three example and then give an overview of the relevant professional and ethical issues for Software Engineers.

Q3: Lecture Questions

For each lecture:

• give an overview of the lecture;
• describe the important professional and/or ethical ideas raised in the lecture, especially those that impact on Software Engineers;
• Important answer any specic questions attached below to the lecture.

1. Stephen Cohen: Theoretical Underpinnings of Ethics formerly known as Introduction to Ethics and Moral Reasoning: A Practical Framework

   Discussion of this choice should concentrate on the underpinnings of ethical reasoning. Choose two dierent ethical reasoning frameworks and demonstrate how these could lead to dierent decisions.

2. Stephen Cohen: Professionalism and ethical responsibilities

   Discussion of this choice should present key ethical principles that distinguish professional principles and responsibilities.

3. Brendan Scott: The Hows, Whys and Wherefores of Open Source - Open source as a market reaction to regulation of the software industry

   Discussion of this choice should cover give the historical developemnt of markets and the economic arguments for controlling dierent types of markets.

4. Alycia Williams (APESMA): Industrial Relations and the Professional

   Discussion of this choice should cover the discussion of contracts presented in the lecture. What clauses can you expect to be in a contract and what are their impact? What clauses would you look for when examining a contract?

5. Ken Robinson: Ariane 5 Disaster

   Discussion of this choice should dierentiate Software Engineering aspects of the case from general engineering and project management aspects to give a balanced analysis of what went wrong.

6. David Vaile: Legal perspectives on system development { Liability, litigation risk, 'professional' standards, and ethics.
7. Stuart Irvine and Roger Henning (Freehills Patent & Trade Mark Attorneys) Intellectual Property: the asset of the 21st century

   Discussion should spend signicant time on software patents.

8. Achim Homann: Personalities and work

   Discuss personality traits (including the \big ve" personality variables) and their potential role in the work place.

9. David Vaile: Legal and ethical issues: Malware, Virtual worlds

   Discuss the social and professional implications and consequences of the examples discussed in this lecture.