Ethics plays an important role in virtually every aspect of life. Every profession has distinct ethical obligations. These obligations include professional competency, integrity, honesty, confidentiality, objectivity, public safety, and fairness, all of which are intended to preserve and safeguard public confidence. The Internet has created an environment where “There is not only greater freedom, but where the laws, rules, and social standards are not quite as clear, or perhaps not quite as enforceable, as we have come to expect in other areas of our lives”. Therefore, a wide variety of ethical issues are involved in online education in the twenty-first century. Four prominent issues currently under debate related to online education include: intellectual property rights, educational fair use, privacy, and licensing.

Intellectual property rights

One broad question that must be addressed by every institution developing online education setup is that of intellectual property rights for the online course content. When institutions contract with faculty to design and develop content for online courses, who owns the produced work; the institution, the faculty member, or both? Varying perspectives have been argued on each side of this debate and it appears that each specific institution has its own set of policies.

Educational fair use

Under the umbrella of copyright issues is the concept of “educational fair use”. In terms of the “fair use” doctrine, limited reproduction of copyrighted works for purposes of criticism, news reporting, teaching, scholarship and research do not constitute an infringement of copyrights. This is an extremely common problem at many colleges across the United States, because faculty have grown to believe that everything they do in a classroom is considered to be fair use as long as it is for educational purposes. This view seems to have extended to the online arena as well, which is more exposed to the public.

Privacy

One of the most controversial aspects of adequate use is the degree of privacy that individuals are afforded in their online activities. In some institutions all e-mail may be monitored. An online course generates lots of e-mail traffic among the participants. In institutions where e-mail may be monitored people may be wary about what they say online, thus affecting the quality of online interaction.

Licensing

This is another important issue in online education. The use of commercial software and certain course materials is governed by licensing agreements specifying the terms of usage. Any use outside the terms of the agreement amounts to theft. An institution that makes software freely available to staff members and students may be violating terms of such agreements. It is important for institutions to familiarize themselves with the terms of licensing agreements before they provide software to students and staff, even if it’s for training and educational purposes.

In order to avoid or minimize the impact of all the aforementioned ethical issues, it is important to take ethical values seriously when developing virtual university programs. It should be placed at the core of every structure and procedur e that is developed or used. Discussions and reflection of valuable ethical values should indeed be a recurring activity within universities themselves.