This document presents a story comparing two students, Earl and Jerry, and their adherence to the rules of netiquette in an online course. Earl follows netiquette rules carefully by respecting others, maintaining appropriate discussions, being helpful, and avoiding disruptions. In contrast, Jerry violates many rules through personal insults, inappropriate sharing, disrespecting others' time, and causing arguments. The document encourages students to follow Earl's example of respectful online behaviors to create a safe learning environment and contribute positively as community members.

1. Netiquette: A Tale
Or, Rules for Communication in
An Online Course

2. Where, with whom, and how do
you typically communicate online?
 On social media platforms, such as
Twitter or Facebook
 In comments sections on articles or blog
posts
 In emails or via messaging services
 On your own blog or website
 Via text message

3. “
”
Netiquette is a set of rules for behaving properly online. When you enter any new culture --
and cyberspace has its own culture—you’re liable to commit a few social blunders. You
might offend people without meaning to. Or you might misunderstand what others say and
take offense when it’s not intended. To make matters worse, something about cyberspace
makes it easy to forget that you’re interacting with other real people—not just ASCII
characters on a screen, but live human characters.
Virginia O’Shea
Please follow this link and read The Core Rules of Nettiquette. The core concepts in this
presentation have been derived from this source.

4. Think about how you normally have conversations with people
online. What can you identify as the hallmarks of a healthy,
productive, and respectful conversation online? What are the signs
of rude and disrespectful conversations?
Spend 5-10 minutes brainstorming and jotting down notes.

5. Earl and Jerry are used to communicating online in a variety of
different ways. Earl knows the rules of netiquette, and always
follows them. Jerry does not.
Earl Jerry

6. Rule 1: Remember the Human. We aren’t just letters and
sounds—we’re people with feelings and ideas.
Earl reads Jerry’s profile during the first week of class to
learn more about him. He is respectful even when they
disagree.
Jerry often insults Earl’s intelligence in a belligerent way.
He disrupts the entire conversation when he doesn’t
agree, and never thanks people for responding to him.

7. Rule #2: Adhere to the same standards of
behavior online that you follow in real life.
Earl is kind, respectful, and a good listener. He doesn’t
tell inappropriate jokes or talk about disturbing things.
He is patient.
Jerry often derails conversations by talking about his
various hunting escapades, which are too gruesome to be
shared in good taste.

8. Rule #3: Know where you are in cyberspace.
Earl spends some time lurking before jumping into a
conversation, so he can know what’s going on and where
and how to enter into the conversation.
Jerry doesn’t bother to find out what the tone or tenor of
the group or forum is before he begins to share
information. He just barges right on in.

9. Rule #4: Respect other people’s time and
bandwidth.
Earl makes certain to keep appointments for small
groups, and makes sure to work with other people’s
scheduling and tech needs.
Jerry is always late to meetings, rarely has the tech
necessary for the work at the right time for the
assignment. He is flaky.

10. Rule #5: Make yourself look good online.
Earl makes certain to proofread his posts, even when
posting on the go. He makes sure to run the spellcheck
for long posts.
Jerry is always posting from his cellphone and refusing to
proofread, which means his posts are often hard to read
and nonsensical.

11. Rule #6: Share expert knowledge.
Earl often helps people figure out tech issues, because he
works in IT during the day. He’s got tons of useful tips
which help the course run more smoothly.
Jerry never speaks up about what he knows, even when
there is a topic on which he knows quite a bit. He rarely,
if ever, contributes what he knows.

12. Rule #7: Help keep flame wars under control.
Earl is cool and calm. If people are arguing, he always
tries to help find common ground on which to discuss
the issue respectfully.
Jerry is in the middle of every
fight. Period.

13. Rule #8: Respect other people’s privacy.
Earl read the introductions, and responds to the
information shared there without asking for personal
details. He maintains boundaries.
Jerry is known to ask for cellphone numbers,
photographs, or to push other people to share more
information about themselves.

14. Rule #9: Don’t abuse your power.
Even though Earl is an IT wiz, he doesn’t use that to his
advantage, especially during group work.
Jerry sets up structures that are too complicated for his
peers to follow.

15. Rule #10: Be forgiving of other people’s
mistakes.
When someone can’t figure out how to upload a
document, Earl is patient and understanding of different
learning styles and paces.
Jerry gets frustrated very easily, and doesn’t make amends
or forgive easily. He is not tolerant of different abilities
than his own, and is often too demanding.

16. Now that you understand the
rules of netiquette, you know
that it’s important to follow
Earl’s lead because
 a healthy and safe online environment
will help everyone learn.
 being a respectful and strong contributor
to our learning community is crucial for
your success.
 online learning requires participating
with other people who you don’t know,
but who have much to teach you—and
you them!

17. Because we are our own community, let’s have a
discussion about netiquette, and how we plan to
build a strong community together.
 Write a post of no fewer than 250 words about your ideas for
promoting a healthy, productive, and safe learning community
this term, by implementing the rules of netiquette. What are
your strategies for using what you’ve learned? What are your
obligations to the community? And what are some of your ideas
for how we can hold each other accountable?

18. Resource I created
I see this as obviously establishing the
guidelines of netiquette for my students, but
I also see it as a beginning of the course
exercise, along with their introductions.
Their first post in the class would be to read
the Netiquette book online, go through this
PowerPoint, and then make a post in a
forum about how to build our own
community. It might help get some of the
awkwardness out.

19. How this is different from an
face-to-face resource
I would never need to have this kind of
conversation with my students, because I’m
always right there in class to intervene where
necessary. In the classroom I am the one who
controls the flow of conversation, but in an
asynchronous learning environment I have to
teach them how to interact with one another
even when I am not there to watch them. They
also need to learn to think of themselves as a
learning community that functions both with
and without me, but always together.

20. How it helps
Reading about netiquette has been helpful for me.
It’s kind of cheesy, but it’s really, really important.
I’ve seen conversations in the last few months that
have turned my hair white—people turning on one
another because they’re not reading the tone
properly, because they don’t forgive easily, because
they forget that the person they’re screaming at in
all caps is a human being with feelings. As I try to
wrap my head around the enormity of the task of
teaching online, I think beginning here—with the
fundamentals of human engagement in an online
forum, is really lovely.