eLearning Ethical Issues and the Students

As we all know and experience, the invention of the Internet opened doors to all the information we could possibly want to search and find. In fact the Internet is thought of as a very powerful resource, especially for education, where both educators and students can search for any information they might need to enhance the learning process. So much so that education has now also been extended to an online platform resulting inseveral elearning components. However, one cannot ignore the numerous ethical problems arising from the number of readily available information which can be accessed and in some cases copied and presented without any acknowledgements. It is not the first them that, as my friends pointed out, students simple copy and paste information from the Internet without stopping to think about the ethical implications of their actions, and not even noticing the infringement of the copyrights of the material being reused without the author’s approval. With the implementation of elearning system, the risks of infringement of copyright increase as “It is easier to cheat online than Face-toFace (F2F).”

However identifying the increase of the “traditional problems of cheating, plagiarism, and violation of privacy, vandalism, theft, and spying into the cyberspace” with elearning systems, is not enough. As educators implementing the online environment we have to be aware that the we can limit such unethical acts by carefully configuring and managing the courseware for eLearning through the design of the assigned tasks and the implementation of checks to balance and minimize the unethical practices. The tools and services provided within a Course Management Systems (CMS) or Learning Management Systems (LMS) can help in”preventing the issue of cheating, plagiarism and copyright violations.” Such tools can be used in the (a) Structuring of Assignments and Evaluation Techniques and the (b) inclusion of peer assessment, which if configured and implemented well , will hinder the unethical usage of the online available content. Here are some tips I found in a journal article I read.

When structuring the assignments and also the techniques for evaluation it is ideal to use multiple methods of measuring performance, mastery and skills. The assignments could range from asking students to create or design a web site which could be considered as a component of eEducation, to creating online portfolios which contain a range of material samples, creating and publishing resources by using available web site tools such as online powerpoint presentations, hands on lab approaches, creating themed Games and Puzzles. The idea is to ask for student creativity and opinions where the Internet is not used as the provider of the information readily to be presented, but rather the internet is what they actually use to produce their own work, which can be stimulated by some concepts found through the Internet. For example providing students with case studies which they need to analise and post comments and thoughts about the case studies and their opinions backed with some theories which can be found through the Internet. This brings us to the suggestion of including peer work and peer assessment on an online learning environment by using forums or Instant Messaging tools so that students have a chance to express their personal ideas and introduce themselves to the class. It is also suggested that having peer reviewed systems will control the amount of unethical use of the material available on the internet.

This suggestions all ask for the student to think creatively and create something “new” rather than reproducing what is already available and thus reduces the needs of students simply copying and pasting information to respect the copyright and IP available on the internet.

As mentioned by my friends some students still do not understand the true meaning of copyright and the implications which comes with every Intellectual Property available on the Net, and thus simply break the rules without considering their actions. To prevent such behaviour from happening it is a good practice to put in act some prevention strategies such as :

o Presenting, discussing and reviewing policies related to academic integrity, plagiarism and cheating with the students and dedicate time to them as part of the educational syllabus.

o Explaining the different levels of using someone else’s work, but that at the end it’s still cheating. This can be much easier explain on an eLearning online environment where students can put their work online and then without asking for permission the teacher uses their work as hers and see what reactions the students will have. Using the reactions, the teacher can explain the unethical actions of using something without any permission

o Discussing the consequences of plagiarizing by presenting plagiarism and violation of copyright and privacy cases and discussing them.

o Not just scare the students but also teachings students how to cite and quote the material used using the appropriate formats and layouts. Could also teach them how to ask permission to quote and use copyrighted materials.

o Guide students with what resources they could/should use by providing a list of websites or books, or maybe even specifying the number of references which can be done from different sources available.

Most importantly it is important that we practice what we preach as students will start adopting the same methods for example we as educators have to make sure that all the information available on an eLearning platform conforms to all the fair use guidelines and have the appropriate citations and attributions given to the author/s of the information.

I found a site which explains 10 big myths about copyright laws and related topics. I found it useful to learn from it myself and also could be used to explain the concepts to the students. Here’s the link to the site:

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Another interesting site I found which I think can be very useful is a copyright tutorial which guides the user to understanding the concept of copyright. I think it’s of utter importance that as educators who will soon be using an online learning environment, that we know well the concepts and implications of copyright to avoid breaking any ethical rules.

http://www.lib.utsystem.edu/copyright/high-home.html

Nagi, K. ( August, 2006). Solving Ethical Issues in eLearning. Special Issue of the International Journal of the Computer, the Internet and Management , Vol. 14 No.SP1.