Cyber Ethics

Cyber Ethics:

Rules for Using the Web

We all have heard of ethics. According to Webster’s II New College Dictionary (1995), ethics is the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession. As Winn Schwartau (2001) stated “ethics is also about understanding how your actions will affect other people”. Cyber-ethics is the ethical decisions we make when using the Internet. We are tasked to use the Internet on a daily basis and we task students to use the Internet regularly, but to use it properly we must adhere to ethics. Ethics is not a law but your moral code. We must know how to avoid plagiarism, know the acceptable use of the Internet, and we must be familiar with Censorship in order to know what moral standards to follow with the World Wide Web.

Plagiarism, or as Steven Gardiner (2001) calls it cyber cheating is the new twist for cheating. Over the years plagiarism has become much harder to detect. But, how do you know when a student has copied his work from online, and not give the proper credit to the rightful owner? I remember working on my undergrad and to prevent cyber cheating my professor only allowed us to use a limited number of Internet cites. The rest were to be from physical books from the library. I can see why a student would copy a paper over writing one. It only takes a few minutes to search the web, cut and paste, and then add you name. The time they saved in research just added more time for them to do the things that are fun. The second way to detect cyber cheating according to Gardiner (2001) is that if you task a student to write a paper is MLA and the paper is in APA it is almost a given that the paper was not written by the student. As most teachers are parents or have that parental instinct, they are aware of the capabilities of their students. So another way to determine if the paper is a fake is ask yourself if that student could really produce that quality of work.

To understand the appropriate use of the Internet you have to know what is acceptable and what is not. The Department of Justice categorizes computer crimes in three different ways: the computer as a target, the computer as a weapon, and the computer as an accessory (e.g., para 2, “What is Cyber Crime?” n.d.). We must teach children how to use the Internet the right way. Much of what we know is learned, and the same goes for using the ...

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References

Crystal, J., Geide, C.A., & Salpeter, J. (2000, November). The concerned educator's guide to safety and cyber-ethics. Tech Learning [Online]. Retrieved October 22, 2004: http://www.techlearning.com/db_area/archives/TL/112000/cyberethics.htm

Federal Censorship. (2002, February). Retreived October 22, 2004 from the World Wide Web:http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/

Gardiner, Steven (2001). Cybercheating: A New Twist on an Old Problem. Retrieved October 22, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0110gar.htm

Radnofsky, Mary and Vuko, Evelyn ( 2004, June 1). Teacher Says: Teaching Cyber Ethics: Kids on the Internet. Washington Post Online. Retrieved October 22, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64135-2004May28.html

Schwartau, Winn (2001). Cyber Ethics 101: What Are (Is) Ethics?. Retrieved October 22, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ed-u.com/cyber-ethics.htm

Webster's II New College Dictionary. (1995). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.

What is a cyber crime? (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.cybercitizenship.org/