ABSTRACT
Jowitt’s paper suggests that civil engineering systems engineers require an ethical imperative and a set of specific attributes. The ethics should include a broad understanding of value and values. Attributes of a successful systems-capable civil engineer are listed in a table stemming from an international workshop. They can be summed up in terms of ASK: Attitude, Skills and Knowledge.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Regarding economics and value, the commonly-used measure of GDP as a means of measuring community value is by no means logically consistent, partly because the value of money is changeable and context-dependent, and also because the assessment of value so easily shifts between extrinsic and intrinsic – objective or subjective – points of view. Is it possible that rigorous systems thinking could bring sense to the situation?