Ethics in eLearning

Abstract

We tend to think of net business in terms of commercial companies—the production and exchange of goods, but education is also a growing net enterprise. In the United States, for instance, online education or distance learning is the fastest growing sector of the higher education industry. All of the ethical dilemmas that net businesses must face are also faced by online educational programs with one major addition—the quality of the learning outcomes. There is currently a dearth of research on the quality of learning outcomes in web-based education and this represents a significant challenge for educational institutions. Introduction We tend to think of net business in terms of commercial companies—the production and exchange of goods over the Internet, but education is also a growing net enterprise. In the United States, for instance, online education or eLearning is the fastest growing sector of the higher education industry. All of the ethical dilemmas that net businesses must face are also faced by online educational programs with at least two major additions: First, the eLearning provider is faced with a host of moral challenges related to the quality of the learning outcomes; and second, the eLearning consumer faces a variety of moral challenges related to engaging in the learning process. Two examples will help to frame these two constellations of ethical issues that are relatively unique to the eLearning enterprise: The first example comes from an e-mail message received some months ago from one of the larger for-profit organizations offering on-line degree programs. The e- mail was dynamic, colorful and carried this banner headline: You may already have a degree and not know it. Without belaboring the point, the obvious question that arises from this message is, How much genuine learning takes place in the process of earning a degree that you did not know you have? This example highlights a broad variety of moral issues related to the quality of eLearning offerings and the effectiveness of eLearning outcomes. Another example focuses on moral issues for the eLearning consumer: The most recent National Survey of Student Engagement indicates that as high as 59% of U.S. students involved in eLearning programs admit to some sort of academic fraud either very (27%) or often (32%) (NSSE, 2007). This is the primary concern of faculty teaching at a distance—that the eLearning student doing the work is indeed the student enrolled and that the student is not misrepresenting his or her work. Admittedly, today's college students have been raised in an era of decline in public