ENGG 687: Ethics, Law, and the Engineering Profession, Fall 2025
Instructors: Alexa Boyer
Created in conjunction with Robyn Paul
Assignment overview document
The assignments include individual work (50%) and team work (50%). You are
independently responsible for ensuring you and your team members submit all
elements of the course. You will be randomly assigned into teams of 3-4.
The following table provides a brief overview of all assignments. Please check each
assignment document for specific details on that assignment, including grading
information and a rubric.
Assignment Brief Description Deadline
Weekly Reflections Complete weekly Wednesdays starting
(individual) reflection “quiz” that asks September 10
you 3-5 open-ended
questions about that A total of 5 quizzes
10%
week’s lecture content through the term.
and reading materials.
These are graded for
completion.
Case Proposal As a team, determine September 24
(team) your working agreements
and choose an ethical
case that you will analyze
10%
throughout the term.
Video Presentations Two recorded video Video #1
(team) presentations about your October 8
chosen case, relating the
information you’ve been
Two @ 15% each Video #2
learning in class to your
case study, and doing October 29
decision analyses.
Created by: Alexa Boyer, Fall 2025
Assignment Overview Document ENGG 687
D2L Discussion Posts Watch and comment on Video #1
(individual) some of your peers’ video October 15
presentations through a
D2L discussion board.
Two @ 5% each Video #2
November 5
Personal Portfolio Put together a creative November 19
(individual) “portfolio” of your
engineering ethics and
professional skills that
20%
could be used as a
showcase for a potential
employer.
Final Report Write a summary report November 26
(team) of your chosen case, the
analysis you conducted
through the videos, and
10%
the overall learnings from
the case.
APEGA Competencies Complete a sample December 3
*Alternate assignment for competency-based
PEng students* assessment document as
(individual) a preparation for [Link].
application.
10%
Team Grades
Students will be assigned to random teams of 3-4 (see D2L for groups by
September 8). Students are responsible for coordinating teamwork with their team
members and ensuring team assignments have been submitted (all members will
have access to D2L submission folders and the ability to confirm submission). All
team members will receive the same grade on all team assignments.
Deadlines & Extension Requests
Assignments in this course are always due on Wednesday at 11:59pm MST. It is
your responsibility to submit all individual and team assignments on time.
If you require an extension, you must submit the “extension request form” on D2L.
Please note:
• Extension requests by email will not be considered.
• Extension requests must be received PRIOR to the anticipated deadline
(ideally 24 hours prior).
• Extension requests of 1-3 days will be automatically accepted (you must
submit the form, but you will not receive any email confirmation as your
extension is automatically accepted).
Created by: Alexa Boyer, Fall 2025
Assignment Overview Document ENGG 687
• Extensions requiring more than 3 days will be addressed on a case-by-case
basis.
Grade Reappraisals
Grading reappraisals must follow the SSE Reappraisal Policy. Specifically, “A Student
must request a discussion with the instructor no later than ten (10) business days
from the receipt of or the viewing of the Graded Term Work.” Grade term work will
be considered “received” the moment the grade is released on D2L. It is the
students’ responsibility to review their D2L grades regularly (it is recommended to
turn on grade notifications).
Any grade reappraisal requests must come through a submission of a “Grade
Reappraisal Request” form on D2L. Requests by email will not be considered. Only if
the instructor does not reach out within three (3) business days from the
submission of the form should the student send a follow-up email.
If the instructor agrees to the reappraisal, the assignment will be re-graded (which
can result in the grade staying the same, going up, or going down). The new grade
will be updated in the D2L gradebook. If the instructor disagrees to the reappraisal
request, an email will be sent describing the rationale for disagreement.
Academic Integrity
All assignments may be checked for plagiarism, replication, and AI tools usage. We
highly encourage you to review the following resources, and understand the
importance of Academic Integrity at the University of Calgary.
University of Calgary Academic Integrity
[Link]
This website has lots of great resources, including a student handbook, and how to
guides. Here is some highlighted information from their student handbook:
• “We’re a diverse community and your interpretation of academic integrity may be
different from your peers, depending on where you’re from and/or what institution(s)
you previously attended. It’s vital for you to understand what academic integrity
means at the University of Calgary and how to ensure you uphold it.” p. 3
• The following are considered violations of academic integrity: (p.3-4)
o Cheating: copying work, using unauthorized materials
o Contract Cheating: contracting your work out to someone else to complete
o Fabrication: creating or using false records
o Falsification: altering work or records for academic gain, impersonating
another student, manipulating data
o Plagiarism: presenting the ideas or work of others as if your own
Any suspected violations of academic integrity will be investigated seriously and will
follow all University and Schulich procedures. Consequences of violations vary
Created by: Alexa Boyer, Fall 2025
Assignment Overview Document ENGG 687
based on many factors and could include attending educational workshops, to
suspension or expulsion from the university in severe cases.
ChatGPT and LLMs (large language models)
You may not submit writing for this course that has been generated by a large
language model or AI tool (e.g. ChatGPT). This does not mean you are forbidden
from using the tools at all, however any work submitted as yours must be your
own. See examples included in the slides from the first day of class for acceptable
and unacceptable use cases for LLMs.
We highly recommend for ethical, environmental, and practical reasons to limit the
use of LLM throughout your engineering work and ENGG 687 work. However, we
understand they may provide benefits to your learning. If you use an LLM, you
must cite it.
LLM Citation Note
We are still learning how to cite LLMs properly. If you use an LLM to support your
work in any way, you must include a notation with the following information:
• Name of LLM
• Date and version of specific model
• Date that you used the model
• Information about your process and prompts. This does not need to be
exhaustive, but should summarize what you did in a few sentences.
For example:
LLM Citation Note:
This work has been supported with ChatGPT (GPT-4-turbo released in November 2023),
used between September 1-3, 2024. After doing some initial brainstorming, we knew we
wanted to choose a case study that had a wealth of data online and asked the model
“what engineering ethical case studies have been studied the most?”. We realized we
wanted something current, so we tweaked our prompt to provide us with some more
current examples, as well as trying to ask for more local examples. ChatGPT eventually
suggested the Algo Centre Mall Roof Collapse, which our team ended up choosing.
Any information you provide as part of your LLM citation will not be counted within
the page limit of the assignment. If you use the LLM multiple times throughout an
assignment, please include a brief description of all the different usages.
Important note:
As we all learn together, we want to ensure that you have a safe space for
disclosing the ways in which you are using an LLM in your work. Within reason, any
LLM disclosure will be considered in good faith. If you disclose information that
could be considered a violation of academic integrity within the assignment, this will
provide an opportunity for dialogue, and, within reason, you will not be penalized.
Created by: Alexa Boyer, Fall 2025