EECS 690

1
EECS 690

• February 26

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Professions

• Just to clear up some word confusion
• In common usage, a professional is generally
  anyone who gets paid to do something.
• Professionalism in common usage refers to a
  general code of conduct in the workplace
• In this case, we mean to discuss a more technical
  and specific definition of Profession

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Characteristics of Professions

1. Mastery of an Esoteric Body of Knowledge (e.g.
   Medicine, Law)
2. Autonomy
3. Formal Organization (e.g. Bar Association)
4. Code of Ethics
5. A Culture of Practice (e.g. Medical researchers
   vs. medical practitioners)

4
Mastery of Esoteric Knowledge

• Computing seems to fit this constraint rather
  well, especially for those jobs in computing that
  require a college degree. The curriculum is
  standard for computing degrees in the US, and is
  folded into the entity that accredits most
  engineering programs (the Accreditation Board for
  Engineering and Technology (ABET)).
• In addition to degrees, many companies offer
  certifications of expertise in given systems or
  applications.

5
Formal Organization

• While no single professional society exists to
  encompass all computing experts, some large and
  growing societies are present (e.g. ACM and
  IEEE-CS).
• While these organizations are large and growing,
  there is no obligation for employers to restrict
  their hiring to members of any particular society
  or holders of any particular certification.
  (Contrast Actuaries, Lawyers, Doctors, CPAs,
  etc.)

6
Autonomy

• In this area, computing jobs do not take on this
  characteristic of professions. The various
  organizations that exist have no power other than
  the power of association. Autonomy is not de
  jure.
• However, there is a sort of de facto autonomy in
  computing jobs, most notably in programming,
  because the programmer gets to make decisions
  about code for those who do not have the ability
  to read or write it.

7
Codes of Ethics

• There is no single recognized code of ethics
  binding on all computer experts.
• There are, however, some existing ideas of what a
  code of ethics for computing as a profession
  would look like (e.g. the ACM/IEEE-CS Software
  Engineering Code)
• This code is specific to software engineers, but
  in places is sufficiently general for wider
  application.
• Codes of ethics are not just for socializing new
  members, but are also guidelines for what the
  public can and should exprect from computing
  professionals.

8
Culture of Computing

• It is difficult to generalize about the culture
  of computing because of the wide variety of jobs
  that the term computer professional could
  encompass.
• There is really very little self-identification
  of such a culture, and very little formal
  self-regulation in computing jobs.