Ethics and Online Education

Abstract

Before the pandemic, both in Ecuador and in the world, e-learning was not widely used, although it was known. This proposal is since in the post-pandemic period there has been an increase in the use, in general, of distance education, in its different modalities, with very little experience on the part of teachers in the design of courses for online or virtual education, in the various educational platforms. However, ethics, mainly from the teacher’s point of view, has not been wholly developed. The teachers’ training in the design of virtual events is necessary, together with their human capacity to relate to students and their preparation to properly use educational platforms with their dozens of internal facilities and the hundreds of existing and free Open Educational Resources (OER). This document discusses the teachers’ ethics, especially for the online modality, as an essential point, in its various perspectives.

1. Introduction

The proposal in point six of the article emphasizes teachers’ ethics, their training in the design of virtual events, their human capacity to relate to students, and their preparation to properly use educational platforms with their dozens of internal facilities and the hundreds of existing Open Educational Resources (OER) that can be freely used.

After reviewing various sources on ethics in educational environments, several works were found that emphasize the dishonesty of students, and summative memoirist tests leave aside the formative ones that are much more creative than the others. Regarding teachers, few findings are confirmed, so the purpose of this work is justified, as it proposes a teachers’ ethics based on their preparation, evaluation, relationship, and treatment with students.

“Towards an Educational Humanity for Teacher Education: Building the Relational, Emotional, and Ethical Bases of Teaching Practice” is one of the studies that discuss the teachers’ ethics and emphasize the educators’ role in medicine. It proposes humanizing teaching through poems and metaphors to harmonize the teacher-student relationship; it also illustrates how discussing such lyrics offer a substantive approach to teaching ethical values that promote a “humanistic education” [1].

It should be noted that there are two experiences in Ecuador concerning training their teachers. The first entirely online, with 18 years of experience thus far, has been approved by the Ministry of Education and awarded by UNESCO and the IDB. Other prizes include a Japanese¹ and a Swedish² recognition. This is the Ibero-American Virtual School [2], concerned about the high desertion in the country [3, 4, 5, 6]. It works with 3 years of elementary school, 3 years of high school, and four specialties. The other one: The Catholic University of Cuenca (UCACUE). Since 1990, this institution has worked with Distance Education (traditional) and lately with totally online education, with complete technical careers and in several postgraduate subjects.

1.1 Objectives

1.1.1 General

The mission is to promote the complete formation of the individual by incorporating new technologies in the teaching and training communication process. In this sense, it is desired to train highly prepared professionals who can provide innovative solutions to communication and learning problems, using, planning, experimenting, and creatively executing the new technologies of Learning and Knowledge (TAC by its Spanish acronym) with heuristic and procedural skills, which allow them to apply the theoretical foundations to the analysis of educational problems (technological transfer) with appropriate research methods. Teachers will be able to do the following:

1.1.2 Specific

1. Encourage innovative virtual communication processes;

2. Design, execute, and reflectively evaluate educational and online distance learning events and programs;

3. Apply the new TACs to everyday teaching-learning processes based on research and experimentation;

4. Apply appropriate methodologies to their online distance teaching practices;

5. Conduct applied and innovative research in the area with creative and novel approaches;

6. Analyze educational-communication contexts within the technological and andragogical perspective;

7. Coordinate and develop interdisciplinary activities that consider the importance of social and cultural processes toward technology;

8. Design, implement, and evaluate educational plans and systems and distance learning, non-face-to-face, mainly virtual;

9. Design, implement, and evaluate complete online distance education systems in administration, student services, content, and teaching, among others.

2. Technology

A conscientious and ethical teacher, designer, and facilitator of online courses and workshops must learn to master technologies, that is, online course managers. The two educational platforms or online course management systems used by the Catholic University of Cuenca are MOODLE (for undergraduate careers) and CANVAS (for postgraduate). With the evolution of educational platforms toward the implementation of artificial intelligence [7], these have incorporated elements of instant monitoring of the activities carried out by each participant and systems for reviewing similarities in work done by the students. This process allows monitoring of the ethical and honest conditions of the proposals.

Today, technology has been incorporated into human activities, transforming and challenging our societies with unimaginable implications. One of them is supporting students in their high school and university studies, and implementing info centers throughout the national territory, with adequate technology so that future professionals are qualified and can aspire to better work sources.

In several countries, distance education is considered lower quality³ than face-to-face education. However, a study [8] by Russel evaluates 355 projects and shows the opposite: In some cases, distance education exceeds the traditional one thanks to the excellent use of technology.

3. Ethics

Ethics has multiple synonyms, such as honesty, integrity, values, commitments, honor, morality, principles, justice, responsibility, conscience, correctness. Of course, we must know that its implication and application differ significantly among the various existing cultures, even within the same continent, region, and country.

Ethics and honesty, crucial elements of human behavior, must be lived in academia by students and teachers. Strict punishments are inflicted on students who fail to comply with the norms of honesty and those who cheat. The teacher, from the beginning, must clarify these rules and their consequences. In addition, it is recommended to hold forums at the first day for students and teachers to introduce themselves and reach the productive levels of interrelation.

Student evaluations are also recommended to promote formative assessments with clearly described personal and group work, case studies, problem-based learning and projects, analysis, and proposals forums, among other interactive activities, with few summative evaluations used mainly for control activities. For these last evaluations, which are totally deferred in time and space, technological mechanisms allow students to be monitored using video cameras and fingerprinting, among other resources. In this way, it is not necessary to physically summon students to take their tests. Later on, we will propose an adequate training offer for teachers.

4. Proposal

Hereunder, some rules and regulations will be proposed for good behavior, functioning, and ethical work within a virtual classroom for online course tutors. Ethics is not only the responsibility of the student but also of the teacher.

The following ethical recommendations for the teacher-facilitator in a virtual environment are based on experiences of the University of Wisconsin with a trajectory of more than 100 years in distance and personal education, which mean more than 20 years of work on the subject and 80 courses designed online, in half a dozen educational platforms, in addition to the evaluation of online courses, totally inoperative:

• Prepare oneself responsibly in courses for the “online” modality without assuming face-to-face practice is sufficient.

• Know the situation of students regarding technology with the availability of equipment and bandwidth for excellent communication, using surveys.

• Do not settle for one or two courses. Be prepared with at least 140 hours of online learning processes, through 4 to 7 courses of 40 hours each⁴, among which there must be one of the “didactic techniques for online classes” [9].

• Emphasize formative evaluations to assess learning.

• Use summative assessments primarily for controls.

• Follow this recommendation: “Let’s evaluate results and not intentions” [10].

• Plan for the student as the center of every teaching-learning process.

• Teach how to discover knowledge rather than memorize the subject.

• If teaching, teach with love; in short, let us be human.

In addition, as a teacher, to work correctly and with quality in any online classroom, it is essential to consider the following: enter the platform several times per day, have discipline, fulfill the dates established on the platform, participate early in the morning, review and suggest improvements in the activities throughout the week, and promote the learning and knowledge of students, providing ideas, suggestions, and opinions in the forums, assessments, and assignments. Have interest, discipline, motivation, and dedication to working as a tutor facilitator.

It is imperative to define the forms of communication and behavior in the network (Internet etiquette or netiquette). The following is recommended:

• Rule 1: Never forget that the person reading the message in a virtual classroom forum is, in effect, human, with feelings that can be hurt.

• Rule 2: Behave online just as one would in real life. Be respectful. Remember that an activity gathers people from different regions, countries, and even continents, coming from different cultures. Take care of the local language and be polite.

• Rule 3: Writing everything in capital letters resembles screaming, making it difficult to read. Do not do this unless a certain emphasis is necessary.

• Rule 4: Respect others’ time.

• Rule 5: Show your good side while staying online.

• Rule 6: Share your knowledge with the community. Building knowledge, and sharing it, is the idea.

• Rule 7: Help keep discussions in a healthy, polite, and learning environment. Our point of view is important, as is everyone else’s, although they are diverse. Diversity promotes learning.

• Rule 8: Make sure students avoid cyberbullying.

• Rule 9: Do not abuse your power of knowledge. Encourage and allow other students to participate. Support them.

• Rule 10: It is crucial to be known, so take advantage of spaces to introduce yourself and communicate. Upload your photograph in the virtual classroom.

Everyone, students and teachers, must believe that they are honest; therefore, one must work based on honesty, always at the service of oneself and others.

5. Resources

Each teacher will have in the virtual classroom a series of resources for their students’ individual and cooperative participation. Some of these internal resources of the educational platform are described below:

• A text produced for each module

• Short videos

• Readings that correspond to the conceptual content, organized by topics

• Not graded summative assessments through questionnaires; they are usually “self-monitoring” and serve to verify self-learning

• Forums and Wikis, the former, are spaces for individual reflection and analysis, where participants can share their criteria. The latter are team-building spaces, like collaborative forums.

There are also external resources to the platform, like OER–Open Educational Resources—such as “freely accessible educational resources in the public domain” [11].

6. Training

The ethical attitude is a crucial aspect that ensures the success of any online teaching-learning process and, therefore, requires the training of teachers. The virtual modality is very different from the face-to-face one, although it is based on the same philosophical framework of education. It is not about uploading material as a repository or just depositing documents and videos. It can operate with other modalities: dual, hybrid, blended, inverted, etc., and the “video conference” modality, which has increased since the last pandemic. This modality is “face-to-face at a distance” (synchronous), and its communication is done via video. It is much less effective than the traditional one, where a teacher is in a physical classroom. It can be useful in emergencies and congresses and for brief clarifications or consultations during office hours, but not for a “lecture” of two or more hours. The dynamic performance of the teacher through technology promotes student participation; it is crucial for the success of the course and requires effective asynchronous virtual communication and motivation of the students [12].

In Ecuador and the Region, there is a need for professionals who have mastered the new educational platforms, which, indeed, are of recent use. Promoting communication processes and designing innovative online educational events and teacher training programs are also necessary. In various Spanish-speaking institutions, one or two courses have been proposed to train teachers in the design of virtual courses, which are, by experience⁵ and, as suggested by the University of Wisconsin, insufficient. Therefore, seven courses and a final project, each of approximately 40 hours, are proposed below to ensure teachers can design quality online courses. This itinerary could serve to qualify and professionalize teachers from Ecuador and the Region. The courses would be as follows: 1. Distance and Online Education, 2. An introductory adventure to HTML, 3. Group Processes of Online Communication, 4. Systemic Instructional Design, 5. Online communication (theory and lab), 6. Distance Student Services and Online Assessment Strategies, 7. Technologies for distance learning with Statistics fundamentals. And the individual Project [12]. The detailed program will allow them to provide appropriate solutions to the various problems of Ecuadorian and regional education, through the adoption and application of new technologies and with innovative and creative pedagogical models. It is worth noting that training facilitators and designers of online courses are another vital aspect of a proper teaching ethic.

Learning is a process of motivation, cooperation, analysis, and interest. It is a collaborative process that generates a community of knowledge. Ultimately, active learning requires the learner to perform activities, analyze, reflect, think critically, self-assess, relive their process, and lead their self-learning. In this “process,” the facilitator must guide the learner. The Catholic University of Cuenca proposes that the Region and Ecuador be oriented toward the development of an inclusive, participatory, and interactive knowledge and communication society, with equal opportunities for all, integrating the various actors and sectors of society to meet the challenge of being a country integrated into the digital era [13].

7. Teachers

Virtual tutors and online course designers should be aware that the activities to be designed and developed are totally different from those of face-to-face or traditional distance education, or the “tele classes” practiced during the pandemic. Online education processes are distance learning, but they should not be isolated. The virtual classroom should become an internal network of collaborative learning using the infinite resources available on our educational platform. It is necessary to use an adequate methodology that encourages the development of logical thinking, contextualized socio-critical activities, the use of “high performance” technologies toward the “ubiquity” of knowledge, with emphasis on reading and writing, that develops a true “self-discipline” for life, that increases self-esteem and achievement in study and prepares for the education of the present and the future. It requires “personalized” teaching, materials with active “multimedia” content, quality content with immediate editing—emphasizing the “pedagogy of the question,” learning based on problems and projects, the selection of teachers prepared for this modality, the use of a constructivist and connectivism methodology, a model to discover instead of covering material, resources that use “multiple intelligences”—by Howard Gardner-, “wikis,” simulations, participatory and collaborative forums, summative evaluations, co-evaluations, and continuous self-evaluations.

The following advantages will be reported: lower cost than face-to-face one (in the medium term), use of online materials, immediate measurable results, fully asynchronous, and highly interactive; it promotes active learning, storage of material that can be modified immediately, and personal and self-paced, among other advantages. The learning network is the teacher and the participants, a whole “team” generating knowledge (Figure 1). The only constant must be change; we must all be honest.

Figure 1.

Giancarlo De Agostini, Marco Yamba-Yugsi.

8. Conclusions

As teachers, we must incorporate motivation in our lessons through adequate and necessary resources to support students and timely intervention as tutors to avoid and control conflicts. It is also required to resort to the learners’ experiential field, clearly organize the planned materials, promote group work with real problems, and provide effective feedback, since online education or online learning (e-Learning) for adults is a collaborative teaching-learning process based on collective and individual work, essentially with asynchronous motivating and participative activities, mediated by new technologies for learning and knowledge with the support of interactive resources from open environments, synchronous and asynchronous, with multimedia content, to create a human learning community that generates commitment and knowledge, constructively.