1. Ethics in Online Education
Education is vital for the progress and prosperity of a person. Similarly, ethics
are vital for educational system. In school, we are taught to respect our elders, to
speak the truth and to do our duty diligently. This lays the foundation of ethical
learning in a student’s mind. Without proper ethics, a student may not feel the
need to learn the educational material since cheating can be done. What’s worse
is that a lack of ethics during the educational process can result in a lack of
ethics in the work force. Consequently, an employee without ethics will not only
be in trouble for illegal operations but also earn disgrace and dishonor in the
society.
Today, we are in an era of online learning but the value and importance of ethics
in education is intact. However, it would be interesting to explore the possibility of
dissimilarities between ethics in traditional and online education.
Ethics in education - Traditional vs. Online education
It has to be admitted that both traditional and online student are expected to
follow certain ethics. One perception is that the traditional student may be more
inclined towards following fair and ethical behavior. It could bebecause he
doesn’t have the access to technology that can help him with illegal yet assured
success.
An e-learner, on the other hand, has technology at his disposal which can be
used for cutting the corners and achieving results in an unethical way.The flaw in
this kind of thinking is that it leads to a dangerous notion that all online learners
are or can be unethical. To be fair to both the traditional and digital learners, let’s
bear in mind that value system can be equally followed or flouted by both. It’s just
a matter of access and opportunity.
Students are more technologically wired today than ever before (Tracey 2006,
College and University). It’s no surprise then, that technological connections can
influence a student’s behavior, his value system and code of conduct.

2. Plagiarism
This is one of the biggest problems facing online education system. Millions of
students have fallen prey to the temptation called ‘Copy-paste’. It’s easy, it’s
quick and it gets you grades – so why not? This is the attitude of most of those
Ctrl+C –Ctrl+V fans. They do not hesitate from illicitly using material without
proper referencing. To such students, plagiarism is an adventure that is exciting
but the truth is it could be fatal to their academic career.
To cite an example, in March 1996, two students at Ohio State University were
found guilty of plagiarizing intellectual material belonging to others and using it in
their disserations. The school’s plagiarism committee demanded that the
department chair be dismissed after discovering that other acts of plagiarism took
place for over two decades.
Student Substitution
Some students use a proxy or a substitute who is more proficient in a task to
complete an assignment. In online learning, this could be a major issue because
the online instructor or teacher cannot be physically present to check who has
completed the assignment. Making sure that the student has to read course
material to complete the assignment and asking random questions from his
submission could be a way to deal with the problem.
Teaching Online Ethics
It’s important that students begin to learn online ethics in classroom. It might not
be easy considering the limitations of e-learning wherein a teacher does not meet
his students. For online educators it is difficult to make an impression upon the
minds of their student because they are not face-to-face. However, with due care
and some preventive measures, online ethics can be taught and followed.
For instance, teachers must run their students’ assignments through copyright
checkers to confirm the originality of the content. Students must learn to give
proper referencing for material used by them in their assignments/projects.
Online teachers should also encourage discussions on ethics during the session.
Onus lies on the teachers to lead by example. Some online tutors just keep

3. recycling their course material and lectures which is not a healthy practice. Every
teacher, be it tradition or digital, ought to put in effort to improvise and update
their lecture and course material from time to time.
More than anyone else, it’s the responsibility of a student to maintain integrity
and follow the moral code of conduct while learning. Be ethical, learn the right
things, the right way.