And Now a Word About Ethics

And Now a Word (or Two or Three) About Ethics (347-381)

“Communication Failures Contributing to the Challenger Accident: An Example for Technical Communicators” (Winsor)

-Some knew of problems with shuttle’s solid rocket boosters but they did not share with organization as a whole
-Why wasn’t information communicated?
-managers and engineers viewing the same facts from different perspectives
-the general difficulty of either sending or receiving bad news especially when it
must be passed to superiors or outsiders
-Communication is not just shared information, it is shared interpretation.
- In the Challenger disaster managers thought a 1 in 100,000 chance of failure, and engineers thought a 1 in 100 chance of failure.
-Bad news is not sent upward in organizations and even when it is people are less likely to believe it than good news.
-In Challenger they also had to move bad news through different organizations including NASA, Marshall, and MTI.

Physical Cause of the Accident
-physical cause was the failure of a rubber seal in the solid rocket booster
-problems with O rings and pressure allowing heats to corrode them; O rings connected the segments of the rocket boosters

Early Responses to Bad News: Disbelief and Failure to Send Upward
-Marshall treated as serious when they communicated downward to MTI, but communicated as minor problem to NASA
-Saw erosion at MTI on Februrary 3, 1984
-The subsequent O rings has joint rotation problems
-Marshall changed joints classification from IR (critical system with backup) to I (a critical system without such backup)
-MTI didn’t seem to remember being informed of this rating change
-Mille and Coates at Marshall said that MTI was being too optimistic regarding the extent of joint rotation and thus was too optimistic.
-Marshall too became optimistic when they informed NASA
-MTI reported to Marshall that the maximum erosion on the O-Rings would be .09 inches and the rings would function with .095 inches of erosion. There the extremely small safety margin of .005 was not reported by Marshall (instead used as a pro to NASA).
-NASA wanted Marshall and therefore MTI to identify the cause of the erosion and this wasn’t done until August 19, 1985 (16 months later).
-So to summarize the problems with the O rings were generally not believed by MTI, were accepted at Marshall as long as they could see the problem as MTI’s, and were not sent upward to NASA.

Continued Bad News Rejected Despite Contradictory Evidence
-January 1985, even in cold temperature the O rings were not eroding. But, they just assumed secondary ring would fix it if first one failed.
-At first MTI engineer Roger Boisjoly wanted continued launch.
-The redundancy of the O ring erosion should have been a huge issue, but wasn’t.
-On June 25 flight a nozzle joint eroded to .171 inches, but Mulloy took optimistic view and claimed the nozzle joint failed not because of a defective design but because of a defective ring that had escaped notice in the leak test. Only nozzle joints were focused on here. But there was a launch restraint by Mulloy placed on the nozzle joints. However, NASA never was informed.

Internal vs. External Communication of Concern from MTI Engineers
-Engineers at MTI became concerned. Roger Boisjoly was now insistent on the possible dangers from the O-rings, and he stated this opinion in one of his reports. His report said there would be flight failure if no solution was found.
-Boisjoly tried in a memo to report his new interpretation to his management. In memo his criticizes management in his own company and he uses much more emotional language then is normally common in a engineering documents.
-He did mark his memo COMPANY PRIVATE, so it was kept within MTI.
-Russell did inform Marshall of concerns in his answers to their questions, but since it was written to outsiders it affected its tone even though he and Boisjoly were very much in agreement. It just gave facts with little interpretation.
-Mulloy from Marshall did not send the memo to NASA because it was old news.

The Spilt between Managers and Engineers
-in October MTI engineers Ebeling and Stein complained in a separate internal MTI memo to management.
-In report to VP of Space Programs at MTI, the engineers could not convince him of the seriousness of the situation.
-Boisjoly said in his activity report that apparently upper management feels for sure and the customer be damned.
-MTI recommended that launch be delayed until temperatures reached 53 degrees since it was only at 36 in January 1986, but Marshall refused.
-Mulloy and Hardy at Marshall were appalled at recommendation and hoped they did not expect them to wait until April to launch.
-No engineers were in favor of launch, but managers at MTI were unanimously in favor of it. (Lund asked to take off engineering hat and put on management hat and when he did he changed his position.)
-Hardy and Mulloy did not pass onto NASA officials the fact that the MTI engineers were opposed to the launch.
-Next morning Challenger took off.

Conclusion
-different perspectives on operations between managers and engineers were huge problems in the Challenger Disaster.
-No one wants to communicate bad news outside of the company.
-A failure to believe bad news is common
“How to Lie With Statistics” (Huff)
-Statistics can sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify.

The sample with the built in bias
-ex. Saying the average Yale man from the class of 1924 makes at least 25,000 a year excluded people whose addresses aren’t known and those you threw away the questionnaire.
-It has to be a representative sample with every person as equally likely to be included in the questionnaire.

The truncated, or gee whiz graph
-you can chop off parts of a graph to make the trend look more severe

The souped-up graph
-changing proportions between the ordinate and abscissa or in other words change the scale.

The well-chosen average
-average vs. median

The insignificant difference or the elusive error
-remember to incorporate error into your calculations.

The one-dimensional picture
-you can put three dimensional objects in a two dimensional graph because it distorts the results

The ever impressive decimal
-if you carry out results to more decimal places it sounds more and more like you know exactly what you are talking about

The semi-attached figure
-if you can’t prove what you want to demonstrate something else and pretend they are the same

The unwarranted assumption or post hoc rides again
-cause and effect can be hidden in statistical data
-ex. Cigarette smokers make lower grades but this does not mean that cigarettes dull the brain even thought that is the statistics imply.

“Determining the Ethics of Style” (Jones)

What is Ethics?
-study of right and wrong conduct
-also means set of moral principles and values

Ethics and Technical Prose
-writing involves ethics too- are you knowingly emitting essential information, are you unclear or imprecise leading injury, are you morally responsible, etc.

Ethics and the Professions
-see ten commandments of computer ethics/ethical questions (page 370-1)
-also the Society for Technical Communicators also has ethical guidelines page 372

“Legal and Ethical Issues in Editing” (Rude)

Legal Issues in Editing
Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademarks, Patents, and Trade Secrets
-one can own intellectual property

Copyright
-US Copyright Act of 1976 protects authors of original works of authorship whether or not the works are published.

Ownership
-Copyrights belong to the authors who created the work unless the author wrote the work to meet responsibilities of employment
-works by US government not eligible for copyright; they are in the public domain.

Copyright Notice, Registration, and Deposit
-Automatic once work exists in fixed form and the protection does not require a notice or registration.
-however registration with the copyright office gives maximum legal protections
-for best protection, published work should include a notice of copyright

International Copyright Protection
-copyright in one country does not automatically extend to another
-depend on laws of particular country

Permissions and “Fair Use”
-Permission must be obtained to reproduce sections of someone else’s work
-permission should exist in writing
-may charge a fee for usage
-fair use allows some copying for educational or other noncommercial purposes
-ex. You can photocopy an article in a journal to study for your research paper

Copyright and Online Publication
-you can use what you find on the web under the terms of fair use
-but you can’t distribute something you found on the web to make money or redistribute it and cut out advertisements
-cyberspace law is a new area that is still developing

Trademarks, Patents, and Trade Secrets
-trademarks are brand names, phrases, graphics, or logos that identify products
-patents protect inventions the same way that copyright protects expressions
-laws also protect trade secrets such as the specifications for a new product or customer list. (can’t just hire to find out what competitor is planning)

Product Safety and Liability
-Companies and individuals must assume responsibility for safety of the products as they are used or even misused by consumers.

Instructions, Safety Labels, and the Duty To Warn
-clear and complete instructions
-warn of risk/hazards
-safety labels should be attached to products where users will see them before and as they use the product

The Editor’s Legal Responsibility
-editor has responsibility in eyes of the law for safe use of the product

Libel, Fraud, and Misrepresentation
-libel is a defamatory statement without basis in fact that shames of lowers the public reputation of an identifiable person
-fraud and misrepresentation deceive the public

“Challenger Disaster: Information vs. Meaning” (Dombrowski)
-January 28, 1986- killed 7 astronauts and brought shuttle program to a halt
-tragedy because it was not just disaster but an instant of failed judgment
-tarnished NASA’s reputation

Two Governmental Reports
Report of Presidential Commission (Rogers Commission)
-general atmosphere of unconcern for safety further supported by lack of escape system and the faulty braking system
-topics are not proportional with importance (most important issue was communication breakdown)
-disproportional could be unintentional (just trying to report everything), or could have chosen to report everything that they collected regardless of strength of relevance to show that report was thorough), or could have included a lot of information to show that all factors played significant role
-maybe presented this information to mislead or complicate, in order to avoid tarnishing NASA’s image

Difference Between Reports
-Not only did the presidential commission issue a report on the Challenger, but so did the congressional committee.

More Than Information
-differ in ethical responsibilities and conclusions
-Information they gathered was the same yet they reached different conclusions
-So different conclusions may have occurred because bodies of information are problematic (meaning comes from combining information with assumptions, interests, goals, and values) or meaning does spring fully formed from any body of information (therefore one is correct and one is incorrect). (In less likely case, both could be incorrect.)

Confusing Language
-it uses different language when amounting to the same thing (decision was flawed vs. the decision making process was flawed)

Conclusions Do Not Follow Logically
-the presidential commission fails to address clearly and squarely the question of ethical responsibilities
-First off, it does not point a finger of ethical blame towards anyone.
-Second off, it recommends that additional procedures be implemented to prevent similar disasters in the future, yet the evidence and testimony clearly imply that procedures in place were adequate.
-Third, the suggestion for additional procedures implies that procedures were at fault or to blame (impersonal procedures cannot be blamed).
-It presidential commission report does not account for personal responsibility.
-Congressional report is clear and explicit. It says technical decision making was the problem. It uses consistent and clear terminology.

Two Crucial Shifts in Meaning
O-Ring Charring
-since flights were successful with charring, they took this to mean that may a charred O-ring was a good thing
-the raw data about the O-ring remained consistent but the way it was interpreted, what it represented, and what should be done about it totally changed.

Powerful Role of Assumptions
Managers vs. Engineers again

“Smoking Gun” Memorandum
-managerial audience and he states they are fully aware of the problem and they have been warned
-uses words to make a point that could have been left out like problem or seriousness of the…etc.
-gets highly personal and emotional (fear and honesty)

Graphical Images
-never should be any charring
-don’t have scales or units
-erosion represented as blank space
-don’t have to be a scientist to see that they are eroded

Ethical Appraisal

Aristotle
-would commend memorandum (personal virtue)

Kant
-would reject presidential commission report

Utilitarianism
-could argue for presidential commission report written out of desire to do most good to majority

Ethics of Care
-wouldn’t like how managers use authoritative rule over engineers