Cyber Ethics by Josmar Borg

EDU5650 - CYBER ETHICS CYBER ETHICS IS A CODE OF BEHAVIOUR FOR USING THE INTERNET. ONE EASY WAY TO THINK ABOUT CYBER ETHICS AND TO ADDRESS THE SUBJECT WITH CHILDREN IS THIS: ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR ON THE INTERNET IS VERY MUCH THE SAME AS ACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOUR IN EVERYDAY LIFE. IN CONTEXT OF THE ENVIRONMENT YOU TEACH IN, DEFINE CYBER ETHICS AND COMMENT ON DIFFICULTIES THAT YOU MIGHT ENCOUNTER. IN THE PROCESS DESCRIBE WHAT YOU THINK ARE THE DOS AND DON’TS THAT MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE USE AND ABUSE OF THE INTERNET.

Josmar Borg

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Cyber Ethics ........................................................................................................................................................................ 3 Difficulties that educators encounter....................................................................................................................... 4 The Do’s and Don’ts ......................................................................................................................................................... 6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................................................... 8 Bibliography .................................................................................................................................................................... 10

INTRODUCTION Throughout these years, we saw a great influx of technology that has changed the way we live, the way we communicate, the way media is presented, the way business is done, the way economy is developing, the way we learn and the list goes on and on. Throughout the widespread use of computers and the rapid development of technology we are not only experiencing the need of acquiring a whole new set of skills (which the net-generation students are cultivating autonomously through the extensive use of technology) but a wider array of ethical issues evolved.

This document presents a definition of cyber ethics, particularly in context of secondary schools environment as per my experience as a Computing teacher. It is therefore noted that the term ‘students’, in this document, refers to boys aged between eleven to sixteen years. Afterwards, there is an account of the difficulties encountered while educating the students to cultivate appropriate online habits. Finally, a list of do’s and don’ts is included as recommendations to minimize cyber ethics among students which can eventually lead them to a ‘more ethical’ mentality during their higher education experience and work life.

CYBER ETHICS According to Velasquez, Andre, & Shanks (2010), the term ‘ethics’ refers to “well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues”, as well as the “study and development of one's ethical standards”. It is therefore “the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.”

Webopedia (2013) explained the term ‘cyber’ as a metaphor used to describe “the non physical terrain created by computer systems … [and] …anything related to the Internet”. Therefore, cyber ethics includes the moral beliefs and the ‘solidly-based’ standards in relation to the ‘non physical’ environment. Bork & Caftori (2000), explained how most of the “...ethical issues associated with computers and the internet are the old ethical problems presenting themselves in new media” (cited in Thomas & Ahyick (2010: pg210). Maner (2004) added that ethical issues have further evolved to those “…that (a) did not exist before the advent of computing and (b) could not have existed if computer technology had not been invented” (cited in Farjami, 2002 :p149)

Two small-scale online surveys were done with students during the Computer Club. The aim of the Computer Club, which is open during school break time, is for those interested students who want to learn extracurricular computing skills such as photo editing, video editing and web design. The first survey addressed the level of awareness about cyber ethics among a total of twenty seven students and the aim of the second survey was to gather data of the most common online ‘bad habits’ among a total of 58 students. Whereas the list of countless cyber ethical issues includes hacking, cyber fraud, cybersex, malware, Phishing (identity theft), cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, cyber vandalism and others, in this document the focus is on the most common unethical online practice both at school and outside the school environment as resulted from the surveys. The data gathered showed that sharing of software and media was the most prominent, followed by using online text as part of their work, then sharing of personal authorization details, seeing violent content and playing hateful games, browsing pornography online, being bullied and using the Internet to bully others. Hacking was very minimal and meeting online ‘strangers’ offline was not the case. Hence, in this document, the term cyber ethics mainly comprises of cyber piracy, cyber bullying, cyber security and plagiarism.

DIFFICULTIES THAT EDUCATORS ENCOUNTER At our school, the school guidance team organize interesting talks for the students about cyber ethics, including cyber security and cybercrime. Moreover, occasionally, the education division organize similar talks in schools across Malta and Gozo with the participation of external speakers coming from different fields such as industry, business and forensics. The aim of such talks is to make students aware of the dangers of unethical online practice. However, it was noted that such talks are not as effective as it might be expected. For instance, from the surveys conducted, 86% of the students said that there is

“l-informazzjoni hija online biex tuzha, mhux hekk?” “imma jien mhux qed inbieghhom sir, mhux nixxerjaw bejnietna!” “jekk ma ghandiex flus biex nixtri lfilms, allura ma narahomx sir?” “mhux ghalhekk jeziztu t-torrentz”

nothing wrong with copying material from sites without referring to it; 92% of the students consider copying & sharing games as normal; 74% download films and music from torrents

“mhux kemm inhassar il-History u qisu qatt ma kien xejn”

regularly; 17% do not bother to chat with ‘strangers’ and all the students think of total anonymity when being online.

Does this mean that students are not aware of the dangers and of what is acceptable on the Internet? Or is it because they do not bother about it? Might it be that as Baum (2013) (a public middle school teacher in Pennsylvania) noted, “…the internet brought about a change in core values regarding cheating or is it simply easier for students who would have cheated anyway?” In their research, Thomas & Ahyick (2010: pg219) found “…that while students who had taken the ethics course were more aware of the issues and thought them important…; their behaviour was not changed significantly.” This is in fact evident with my students. Topics like cyber ethics, cyber security, cybercrime, and data protection laws are covered during the ICT and Computing lessons. As an educator I go for a problem-based learning approach in order to engage the students in their own learning process. Such an approach never failed with the students as they demonstrate great sense of participation and effort when producing their work. Yet their behaviour remains unchanged, especially when it comes to unlawful downloading, and unauthorised software duplication and plagiarizing text which happens right in the school computer labs. As cited in Baum (2003), Jacobsen & Smith (1998, paras. 5- 6) noted that “the key is that ethical behaviour is not a one-or-two-day lesson, but a theme we address throughout the course”. Thomas & Ahyick (2010: pg210) explained that “having it [cyber ethics] as a separate subject may cause students to see ethics as a separate side issue that is disconnected from the rest of what they learn.” However, the problem with integrating cyber ethics across the curriculum is that it might not be taught properly or completely neglected because of the lack of in-service courses organized for educators as part of their professional development process. On this same note, another difficulty experienced by educators is the fear of facing tech-savvy students. Some of my colleagues feel inferior to their students because their ability to use computers is not as competent as that of the students. Hence, they omit to raise certain ethical issues as they might feel humiliated if the students contradict them.

Another important issue is that most often there is no continuation of what is being taught at school and what happens at home. Parents should cooperate with educators so that students are encouraged to reflect about what they are being taught and to put it into practice. This is a very difficult task, especially if the students do not find an exemplary situation outside school. I found this problem to be even more prevalent with students coming from lower status families as indicated from the comments that students speak out among themselves or during cyber ethics lessons and from the behaviour that the students exhibit at school. On this same note, Haddon & Livingstone (2010, p. 1), also stressed out, that “even though higher status parents are

more likely than those of lower status to provide their children with access to the internet, it seems that the children from lower status homes are more exposed to risk online.”

From the cyber ethics talks organized, as mentioned above, it was also clear that the majority of the parents who attended was minimal with the majority being ‘higher status’ parents. This makes it even more challenging since most of the parents “…lack the tools and skills by which they can prevent or manage such exposure” and so while parents “are responsible for their children’s safety, evidence suggests that they should not be relied upon as many are unaware or unable to mediate their children’s online activities.” (Haddon & Livingstone, 2010: p. 2)

THE DO’S AND DON’TS Should educators accept this new reality and work on such a new challenge or simply ban the use of the Internet? Even though that the extensive use of the Internet is “increasing the risk of negative impact due to the unethical use of information technology” (Thomas & Ahyick, 2010: pg210), but “greater internet use is associated with higher levels of education, so educational achievement may be expected to increase the extent and sophistication of internet use.” (Livingstone, S., and Haddon, L., 2009: pg.2). Thus, limiting or banning technology use at school is definitely a paradoxical decision which restricts the students’ learning process. Hereunder, is a list of do’s and don’ts that educators might find useful to instil what Star (2011) referred to as “a culture of proper use”. Educators should prepare practical activities for the students to encourage a more positive online experience. An example would be to discuss cyber ethics with the students and finally establish certain rules to define an online acceptable use policy and the consequences for violating such rules. The students, in group work, are then expected to prepare a presentational work about cyber ethics to be included into the classroom website. This can take the form of a video, online interactive poster, a website or any other presentational form. The aim is that students are engaged in the whole process as this increases the probability that students abide by these rules, unlike to what Petersen (director of policy and planning for the office of information technology at the University of Maryland in College Park) explained that “…often students begin reading the acceptable use policy only after they have been called into his office for a possible violation of the rules.” (Mendels, 2000).

Educators should teach by example. For instance, when using presentational material during the lessons, an emphasis should be done on all the cited work and references should be clearly shown. Consequently, when students are instructed to credit others’ work and avoid plagiarism, they would have an exemplary approach to follow. Educators should enforce this and penalise those students who ignore to do so by giving them a second chance to redo their work or neglect their work if plagiarism is a frequent practice, which would, in return, reflect their assessment mark.

It is also interesting to note that that an effective way to teach cyber ethics is to focus on the process of ethical decision-making. If students think before they act, the chances are that improper online practice is minimized. This requires that educators focus on practical situations that reflect the students’ experiences. Otherwise, it might be quite ambiguous for the students to focus on making the right decisions. As cited in Thomas & Ahyick (2010: pg218), Sherman (2007) pointed out that while certain “... issues [cyber ethical examples] that we use are important for students as they enter the workforce, being able to relate some of the issues to their personal experience would make the course more interesting and relevant”. For instance, the majority of the students (if not all) at my school got to know about the case where a number of students used tablets and mobile devices to take pictures during school hours and then publish them online. Another situation was that of counterfeiting a FaceBook profile related to a particular student. In situations where bullying was done against teachers and/or the school environment, the offenders had to face the consequences as established by the school administrators. But in cases of bullying against other students, we had the victim’s parents opening a legal case against breaching of data protection act and cyber bullying. These situations had a better impact than the cyber ethics talks organized at the school. In fact, 96% of the students surveyed showed a sense of awareness that cyber bullying is bad and most important is that they prefer to keep a positive behaviour rather than facing the consequences.

Another important strategy that can be used is to enforce proper use of technology even when students are working on other, not related, tasks. For example:  Instruct the students to make their research from multiple websites and include references of the websites used. This makes students aware that information presented online may not always be adequate and correct.  Make it a habit to choose some of the students (at random) to present their research work. This way the students make an effort to understand the information they find 7

online rather than just copy and paste it. Otherwise, it would be a bad experience for them to fail from presenting and explaining their own work in front of the class.  Since educators have students coming from different family backgrounds, it is common to find students who do not have access to even the most common software we regularly use. As educators, we should take this opportunity to teach students about the importance of software piracy. This can be done if we discourage the sharing of software among the students and instead they can use other software available for free. I emphasise on using Open Office instead of M.S. Office© for producing documents, spread sheets or presentations; the use of Prezi or Glogster for a different way to present their work; WIX.com or Google sites to create free Websites; Jux.com for an interactive e-Portfolio and other editing tools such as Pixlr-O-matic for photo editing, Video Spin for video editing and Audacity for audio editing.  When students are working in groups, I found it quite effective to give students different roles, mainly being the ‘Leader’, the ‘Resourcer’ and the ‘Tech-Friendly’. The ‘Leader’ should delegate the work and establish contact time for the members to meet online and develop the work (generally I encourage the use of Google Docs). The ‘Resourcer’ finds pictures, videos and other relevant material for the project and the ‘Tech-friendly’ supervises cyber ethical issues, especially netiquette (while students are working online), plagiarism and the use of freeware and/or software which is legally bought.

CONCLUSION Several studies show how technology meets the way net-generation students learn. However, as Gary Chapman (a social policy researcher and director of the 21st Century Project at the University of Texas at Austin) stated, “…schools have been so absorbed in the mechanics of bringing technology to the classroom and teaching students basic computer skills that ethics have often been neglected.” (Mendels, 2000). If students are given access to technology, then educators should be also responsible to teach them how to use it properly. In-service courses should be organized for educators to raise awareness about such issues and how to equip the students with a ‘culture of proper use’. The approach should not only be that of delivering a set of sessions detached from the curriculum but a series of activities across the curriculum. Such activities should relate to the students’ own experience and educators should keep enforcing the set of rules as established in the acceptable use policy of the school.

Parents are expected to cooperate with the teachers to develop a continuum between school and home, and so the school should organize specific sessions that guide the parents how to do so. However, as noted above, teachers cannot completely rely on parents and so they should teach by example and enforce the rules so that students can understand that the rules that apply in everyday life are also applicable in the virtual world. Moreover, the focus should be that even though students cannot see the direct consequence, but in reality students have to face the consequences of their actions.

Finally, as Jerry Crystal (technology coordinator at Carmen Arace Middle School in Bloomfield, Connecticut) pointed out, â&#x20AC;&#x153;...teaching good practice is much easier than eliminating bad ones.â&#x20AC;? (Star, 2011). Therefore, cyber ethics should be emphasised at an early age, thus minimizing the possibility that the students develop certain bad habits which would then be difficult for them to unlearn at a later stage.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Baum, J. J. (2013, January). CyberEthics: The New Frontier. Retrieved May 10, 2013, from redOrbit: http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/345993/cyberethics_the_new_frontier/ Cyber Ethics. (n.d.). Retrieved May 6, 2013, from THE CENTER FOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH IN INFORMATION ASSURANCE AND SECURITY: http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/assets/pdf/k12/infosec_newsletters/07cyberethics.pdf Dark, M. (2002, March 21). Using Moral Development Theory to Teach K-12 Cyber Ethics. CERIAS, Purdue University http://www.cerias.purdue.edu/site/search/site?q=cyberethics Farjami, S. M. (2002). Is There a Place for Cyberethics? A Conceptual Look at the Effects of Cybertechnology on Ethics and Communications in Cyberspace. Asian Social Science, 8 (4), 148152. Haddon, L., & Livingstone, S. (2010). EU kids online. Zeitschrift fur psychologie - Journal of psychology, 217 (4), 236-239. Retrieved May 05, 2013, from http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/27449/1/EU_kids_online_Zeitschrift%28lsero%29.pdf Maner, W. (2004). Unique Ethical Problems in Information Technology. Computer ethics and professional responsibility, 39-59. In (Farjami, 2002) Mendels, P. (2000, February). Online Ethics Should Begin in Classroom, Educators Say. Retrieved may 13, 2013, from The New York Times on the web: http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/cyber/education/16education.html Star, L. (2011, July). Tools for Teaching Cyber Ethics. Retrieved April 27, 2013, from Education World: http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech055.shtml Thomas, T., & Ahyick, M. (2010). Can We Help Information Systems Students Improve Their Ethical Decision Making? Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 209-224. Velasquez, M., Andre, C., & Shanks, S. T. (2010). Markkula Centre for Applied Ethics. Retrieved May 03, 2013, from Santa Clara University: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html Webopedia. (2013). Retrieved May. 03, 2013, from : http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/cyber.html