AUTHOR
Denise Oram

ABSTRACT

We are currently living in an experimental age of technological development. Owing to the exponential growth in the development of new e-technologies and mobile devices, (that is, technology that relies on an infrastructure of electronics and computation for its production and operation) we are experiencing radical changes to our society and generating a major change in human behaviour.

The aim of the paper is to examine different approaches to the problem of the exponential development of e-technologies with a view to increasing informed awareness among all involved practitioners. It highlights problems that systems of ethics promote, concerning the relationships between individuals; that cultural differences need to be reconciled, and that ethics is a highly conceptual field, and has to be mediated through language.

The paper begins with a broad survey of the current relationship between technological progress and its effects on society. This is followed by a review of the history of the relationships between ethics and technological development, showing how the ethical focus has changed over time and in response to major societal concerns.

This paper stresses the importance to take into consideration the perception of ethical issues changing over time and in a given culture. White (1967) was writing at a time when most of those concerned with the imminent environmental crisis were seen as freaks and weirdoes. Now, when no government minister in the U.K. dare make any pronouncement concerning policy without first considering what impact that policy would have on the environment.

The ethical dimension in technological advances is explored, highlighting some major concerns for society particularly focusing on issues of culture, design, the environment, sustainability and human psychological well-being. Ethical issues need to be discussed as part of the process of requirements analysis between developers and producers who may come from different cultural backgrounds which affect their perception of ethical imperatives.

As a contribution to a toolkit of practical mechanisms for addressing sustainability and other ethical issues, this paper proposes a mechanism, the Culturally negotiated ethical triangle. Oram and Headon (2002) proposed this as a framework which would enable discussion between people of different cultural backgrounds and allow different perceptions of the concepts at issue to be mapped on to each other.

The paper focuses on the Culturally negotiated ethical triangle; a tool that can be used by systems engineers and developers, and those responsible for nurturing and educating systems engineers and developers, to facilitate consideration of ethical issues in this context.

It is essential also that we change the culture of the decision-making process whereby an ethical dimension is considered regarding the sustainability of the future development and implementation of new technologies. Skilled negotiators are hard to find. The model can be used as an ethical audit; a basis for negotiation between stakeholders in any decision-making situation. The model can be used for visualising and creating awareness of the issues at stake in the ethical decision-making process. The consideration is to explore the practical application of the proposed model as to the possibilities of its use in the teaching of students to raise awareness of the importance of ethical decision-making with regard to sustainability in the development of new technologies.

Moral and legal responsibility appears to be on the decline, and a change in culture of thought and outlook needs to be instigated in a financially driven world where upgrades and advancements in technology are in demand. Ethical scrutiny is essential if we are to change as a society that is driven by trends, where we need to consider corporate social responsibility and accountability with regards to honesty, obligation and integrity.

Consideration has to be given to social responsibility, time-engagement and issues of sustainability associated with these technologies; ensuring consideration is given to social behaviour towards technology.

It may be argued that even though rights and responsibilities may be proposed and protected directly by supranational bodies such as the European Union (EU), the Council of Europe or the UN, without being filtered through national political administrations, the responsibility for confronting ethical issues falls more and more on the individual. In the event of assessing how the individual is to shoulder this burden, the paper will attempt to analyse the needs of the individual in this respect, and to propose one way in which the individual can be helped.

A major challenge facing society is the lack of structure in the decision-making process pertaining to the design and development of new e-technologies. Following a review of the ways in which ethical concerns may be perceived as affecting the individuals involved, the Culturally negotiated ethical triangle is presented as what is hoped will be a useful tool for all those concerned with negotiated approaches to the design and development of e-technologies.

REFERENCES

Oram, Denise & Headon, Mike. (2002) “Avoiding information systems failure: culturally determined ethical approaches and their practical application in the new economy”, Conference paper, Kaunas University of Technology, published as Inžinerine Ekonomika (Engineering Economics) no. 2 (28), pp. 9-13.

White, L. J. (1967) The historical roots of our ecological crisis. Science, vol. 155, pp. 1203-1207.

AUTHOR
Kiyoshi Murata and Yohko Orito

ABSTRACT

It is alleged that we are now living in “risk society” as a consequence of modernisation or industrial civilisation (Beck, 1992) where “manufactured risk” should be recognised as social concern even though such kind of risk cannot easily be perceived (Giddens, 1999). In this circumstance, a society is intended to be organised in response to risk. In Japan, information and communication technology (ICT) is expected to serve as a key component of policies to deal with risk and to construct a secure and safe society. In fact, policy proposals made by IT Strategic Headquarters emphasise the necessity of establishing the world’s leading secure and safe society using ICT (IT Strategic Headquarters, 2008). They seem to be trying to create complete security and safety in Japan. Private companies also take a proactive stance in the policies. However, are safety and security the supreme values for human beings? In fact, this trial can ironically bring about manufactured risk, but nonetheless they have made little mention of it.

This study attempts to examine what risk is going to be caused by the construction of a secure and safe society using ICT in Japan and why, taking Japanese socio-cultural circumstances surrounding technology and governmental policies into account. Through the examination, the authors would like to consider what Japanese people are going to throw away in return for personal security and safety attained by the government-led deployment of ICT-based information systems. Risk we focus on in this study is invasion of privacy and social sorting inherent in the surveillance society (Lyon, 2003), which is being constructed with multipurpose ICT, and consequent suppression of intellectual freedom including freedom of speech and action.

Most Japanese believed that a peaceful and safe society had been constructed in Japan since the end of World War II in step with Japan’s successful economic growth till the early 1990s.

However, the sarin gas attack in the Tokyo underground system in 1995 and the child murder case in Kobe in 1997, which was called the “sakakibara” case, sowed the seeds of terror or anxiety in people’s minds that the myth of the safe Japanese society had already collapsed.

Repeatedly reported heinous crimes have given Japanese people a realisation of the serious deterioration in the security situation. Indeed, the crime statistics compiled by the National Police Agency show the increasing tendency of the number of violent crime from 2000 to the present and the decreasing tendency of arrest rate from 1996 to 2004 (National Police Agency, 2009). An opinion poll on public security conducted by the Cabinet Office in 2006 shows that 84.3 % of the three thousand respondents feel that Japan’s public security has become worse in these ten years (Cabinet Office, 2007). However, such recognition is not necessarily correct; we can conclude that public security of Japan has not been worse and Japan is one of the safest countries in the world when we peruse statistics regarding crimes in Japan.

In addition to the Japanese people’s feeling of deterioration of public order, the 9.11 terrorist attacks in 2001 gave a significant impact on policies for securing public safety in Japan. Most of litter bins at train and underground stations were removed not to be set time bombs in the bins by terrorists. Latent threat of terrorism has been repeatedly emphasised in government statements as well as in media reports which seem to attempt to promote people’s sense of fear.

Consequently, security camera systems have been installed at train and underground stations, at lifts and entrances of buildings and on streets of city areas. A security camera is called bohan kamera in Japanese which means a camera to prevent occurring crimes, even though any clear evidence of such an effect upon crimes has not been presented. According to the interview with inspectors of the National Police Agency conducted by the authors in 2008, the crime-prevention scheme using high-tech security camera systems have been steadily improved. For example, the security camera system installed in Shinjuku Kabukicho in Tokyo provides police officers with a function of real-time tracking of a crime suspect using video images when an incident happens. In the east exit area of Kawasaki rail station, the high-end security camera which equips the function of detecting abnormal or irregular behaviour using pattern recognition technology will be set up. Installation of these camera systems is hailed by the local residents because they eager security and safety in their cities, and any system, as the inspectors emphasised, equips a privacy-protection function.

The “all in one” IC cards are another technology which enable real-time tracking of individuals’ behaviour and, thus, can contribute to establish security and safety in the public transport. For example, Suica, a prepaid rail pass card with a built-in smart IC chip developed by East Japan Railway Company (JR East) which equips an electronic money function, is used by more than six million people. To each Suica a unique ID number is assigned and in the IC chip variety of individual passenger’s data including information concerning rail service usage and shopping paid by Suica are stored. JR East has already developed the real-time passenger tracking system which, they say, can be used to improve levels of customer service. It goes without saying that this system can function as a crime detection system in conjunction with the security camera systems installed at the rail stations.

Multifunctional, global positioning system (GPS) locator-equipped mobiles, which are popular among Japanese people, can also be used for real-time tracking of individual users’ behaviour. Many motorcars have already been equipped with a car navigation system with GPS, an electronic toll collection (ETC) system and a vehicle video system. In conjunction with the N system (an automatic number plate reader system), these equipments are able to be utilised for real-time tracking of motorcars.

Ordinary Japanese seem rather to hail installation of these traceability systems than to despise due to convenience as well as security and safety they can provide. Behind this attitude Japanese people’s trust in the governments exists. However, this may let them miss manufactured risk the systems can bring about.

REFERENCES

Beck, U. (1992), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, London: Sage Publications.

Cabinet Office (2007), An Opinion Poll on Public Security, available online at http://www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h18/h18-chian/index.html (in Japanese; accessed on 24/07/09).

Giddens, A. (1999), Runaway World: How Globalisation Is Reshaping Our Lives, London: Profile Books.

IT Strategic Headquarters (2008), Priority Policy Programme 2008, available online at http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/policy/it/Program2008.pdf.

Lyon, D. (2003), Surveillance as social sorting: computer codes and mobile bodies, in Lyon, D. (Ed.), Surveillance and Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination, New York: Routledge, pp. 13-30.

National Police Agency (2009), Crime Settings in 2008, available online at http://www.npa.go.jp/toukei/seianki7/h20hanzaizyousei.pdf (in Japanese; accessed on 24/07/09).

AUTHOR
Ananda Mitra

ABSTRACT

Technological advances specifically 1) in the availability of powerful digital machines and 2) the wide-spread penetration of high-speed data connections have allowed for the popularity of numerous social networking sites (SNS) that are leading to significant changes in the way in which people interact with each other and produce their e-identities in the virtual realm. Numerous SNS came (and disappeared) in the latter 1990s and the early 2000s, each providing different kinds of functionality and attracting different levels of following among users. For instance, MySpace was an open site that was popular among a large cross-section of users since it provided unrestricted access to the SNS. On the other hand, the early version of Facebook was restricted to young people in academic institutions and most of the users of Facebook had a priori connections with each other and the SNS was an extension of the real life connection. Other SNS were restricted to specific parts of the World as in the case of Bebo which had a large following in Europe but not in the rest of the World, and Orkut that had an initial following in Brazil, and later in India. The development of SNS was relatively uneven in the early days, but by 2009, the participation in SNS has become commonplace and a large number of people Worldwide have experienced digitally mediated social networking. For example, there was a181% growth of people in the 25 to 34 age range and a 98% growth for people over 35 years old in Facebook membership once it became available to everyone. These numbers demonstrate the growth in a single social networking Web site, but do not shed light on another simultaneous phenomenon where the number of social networking sites is expanding as well. Although there is a dearth of precise counts of the number of social networking Web sites, it is estimated that there are several hundred such Web sites and more are constantly added (Sonnie, 2007). It is inevitable that with such growth, many individuals would be members of multiple social networking groups.

This essay focuses on the way in which individuals produce multiple identities through a discursive process of building a digital presence in SNS. Scholars such as Stuart Hall have suggested that identity is produced via specific narrative and discursive processes where the “identity narratives” become central to the way in which a person can create sense of the self. It is thus possible to create focused identity narratives that offer a specific component of a person’s identity through a specific SNS, reserving other components for other Web sites. As a result the process of identity production becomes problematic when multiple virtual faces are constructed by the same individual operating within the “public” sphere of different social networking Web sites. This offers the opportunity for the production of numerous identity narratives where Goffman’s notion of face becomes elaborated into several layers as the virtual presence distributed across many different SNS.

The fact that millions of people have subscribed to multiple SNS offers the opportunity to examine the ways in which the digital system is altering the way in which identity is produced, maintained and negotiated on and through the digital systems. Understanding this becomes especially important as more people, with fewer former connections, are populating the networks. Simultaneously, a single individual is a member of multiple networks which are all visible to anyone interested in learning about a person. This transparency offers a much more elaborate opportunity of learning about the identity of a person. And those who are curious about a person and those who are creating their identities are both aware of this opportunity and can manipulate the narratives appropriately to manage the composite narrative produced across multiple digital social networks.

The key question thus is: What are the strategies used by people to create multiple narratives across different SNS Web sites? The question is approached using methods of textual analysis as suggested by critical scholars like John Fiske where selected discourses of individuals is analyzed to see specific representational strategies used by the individuals to create multiple identity narratives.

The preliminary findings show that people who have multiple identities deliberately produce specific narrative bits or “narbs” that are tailored for the specific SNS. Most of the digital social networking systems also allow the members to constantly change the narbs. These changes could be in the form of updating personal information, adding new information, or reporting on the status of a person at any time. The outcome of the process of creating dynamic narbs is the slippage from a stable identity narrative. It is difficult to find the seminal narrative about another person if the person is deliberately changing the narbs that become the building block of the narrative. These dynamic narbs all eventually become virtual references to a single real person. Yet the identity narratives of an individual created by different sets of narbs selected from different places in cyberspace could be remarkably different from each other, further complicating the way in which identities are produced and maintained by digital social network systems. The paper discusses some of the possible implications of the process of creating multiple shifting narbs.

AUTHOR
Maslin Masrom, Zuraini Ismail, Ramlah Hussein and Norshidah Mohamed

ABSTRACT

Theoretical Foundation and Conceptualization

Nowadays, in the society, ethical issues are important in the information technology (IT) area, and facing with ethical issues is inevitable. Since humankind live together, it is not possible to live without rules and regulation as what a person must do and what he or she may not do (Boyle, 2002). In general, ethics helps us to live peacefully in the society. While use of information and computer technology (ICT) is being used in all areas of business, industry and education sectors, and general public, the chance for unethical use or abuse of this technology is also increased. Examples of unethical use are infraction of privacy, unauthorized access, creation of virus and worms, security breaches, and software piracy.

In recent era, firms spend a big amount of budget on preventive measures, for example computer-related security (i.e. security tools and policies). Since this is a human problem, ethical behavior by individuals should be warned to computer-related abuse (Henry & Pierce, 1994). Ethical decision making is a process which can be affected by individual’s environment (such as societal environment, belief system, personal environment, personal values, professional environment, legal environment, and business environment). Studies of ethical decision making in an IT context generally search in two directions (Haines & Leonard, 2007). First, the studies focus on examining demographic and personality styles of individuals, and second focuses on the process of ethical decision-making to find beliefs and attitudes that lead to unethical behavior.

The Internet has proliferated into everywhere in the world, and become an essential tool of the people lives. Shaw (2003) explains the relationship between ethics and privacy through the advancement of ICT and internet technologies in the world as following:

“Despite this pervasiveness, there is a downside to using the web. The web has transformed computer mediated communication into computer mediated behavior. Each action generates messages that can be captured, stored, used, and shared by the organizations and individuals who manage web servers. As a result the web allows for behavior to be tracked both broadly and precisely, making it possible to compile detailed, intimate profiles of individuals. These profiles can in turn be used in any number of ways that affect the lives of their subjects, so the electronic footprints we leave as we use the web have the potential to threaten individual privacy at an unprecedented level.”

Recently, privacy is one of the most important component of information security field, and also has become an important ethical issue for computer ethics. In this era, file sharing websites became very common, and there are many unethical issues occurred related to infraction of privacy right. Haines and Leonard (2007) state that ethical behavioral intentions and privacy should be investigated in relation to changes in IT. Therefore, in order to comprehend why privacy is important for ethical issues, previous studies on privacy are examined.

In this study, the related research theories and models for decision making and privacy are presented and discussed. Among the related research theories and models cover in this study:

• Henry and Pierce’s Model (Henry & Pierce, 1994)
• Loch and Conger’s Model (Loch & Conger, 1996)
• Goles, White, Beebe, Dorantes and Hewitt’s Model (Goles et al., 2006)
• Haines and Leonard’s Model (Haines & Leonard, 2007)

Also, moral development encompasses of six components of moral intensity, general moral imperative, moral reasoning and six-stage process of ethical decision making are described in this paper.

This paper also propose the conceptual framework for determining the relationship between ethical decision making and privacy. The conceptual framework is depicted in Fig.1.

Concepts definitions are given in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Definition of Concepts

An important contribution of this paper is the integration of theories and models of ethical decision making and privacy.
Research Approach, Research Methodology and Nature of Data

This study is in relation to qualitative research approach. The data, for this kind of study, consists of former scientific literature. As for the former scientific literature, we look through academic writings, such as refereed articles and books. Other publicly reachable materials are also considered, such as bulletins, web pages, newspaper and magazines. These approaches will further develop other future investigations.

REFERENCES

Boyle, E.J. (2002). An Ethical Decision Making Process for Computing Professionals, Ethics and Information Technology, 4, pp. 267-277.

Goles, T., White, G.B., Beebe, N., Dorantes, C.A., & Hewitt, B. (2006). Moral Intensity and Ethical Decision-Making: A Contextual Extension, The Data Base for Advances in Information Systems, 37, pp. 2-3.

Haines, R. & Leonard, L.N.K. (2007). Individual Characteristics and Ethical Decision-Making in an IT Context, Industrial Management and Data, 107 (1), pp. 5-20.

Henry, J. W. & Pierce, M.A. (1994). Computer Ethics: A Model of Influences on the Individual’s Ethical Decision Making, Computer Personnel, October, pp. 21-27.

Loch, K.D. & Conger, S. (1996). Evaluating Ethical Decision Making and Computer Use, Communications of the ACM, 39 (7), July, pp. 74-83.

Shaw, T.R. (2003). The Moral Intensity of Privacy: An Empirical Study of Webmaster’s Attitudes, Journal of Business Ethics, 46, pp. 301-318.

AUTHOR
Stephen Lilley, Ph.D., Andra Gumbus, Ed.D. and Frances S. Grodzinsky, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

We who study and teach computer ethics are familiar with what matters to experts regarding software property rights and privacy rights in cyberspace. For example, we know that Richard Stallman cares most about maximum dissemination of software for social benefit. He favors free software over protected software because the former is unencumbered (Stallman, 1992). We also know that experts representing the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) care most about profit from intellectual property and, accordingly, favor strong copyright provisions and enforcement. Stallman and the RIAA stake diametric absolutist positions: Software should be free or protected regardless of the author, the application utility, the economic system, the user intent, etc. For them, specific circumstances do not matter. Helen Nissenbaum (2001 & 2004) has recommended sensitivity to contingent elements both in terms of property and privacy. For her, the details of the case or social context do matter. Her contexts are similar to the “situations” found in James Moor’s (2004) privacy theory.

In her article, “Privacy As Contextual Integrity,” Nissenbaum (2004) explicitly promotes a context-relative approach. She notes that social contexts are governed by norms of appropriateness and norms of distribution in regard to the flow of information. For example, it is appropriate for a close friend or physician (in a healthcare context) to probe about one’s health and emotional state but if a salesperson did this within the context of shopping one would treat it as a violation of privacy. She proposes that “information gathering and dissemination be appropriate to that context and obey the governing norms of distribution within it.” (101)

Research Question

Given that ethical issues concerning privacy and property affect all users, the authors decided to conduct an exploratory study on the non-expert’s attitude about property and privacy rights. Are they absolutists or context-relativists? Are there contextual norms or conditions that matter to them? We pay attention to the experts because they help shape the social debate from “above” by means of conceptualization, rhetorical argumentation, and policy recommendation. Nevertheless, non-experts are not without influence–they shape the social debate by their decisions and actions at the ground level through their roles as students, consumers, and employees (see Buchanan (2004) and Gotterbarn (1995).

Research Study

Our investigation constitutes one part of an international study of college students conducted in the 2008-2009 academic year, of which we were co-sponsors. Although this was a multi-site study (USA, UK), we limit our report to the data collected from our site in the United States. Students were asked to respond using a Likert scale (i.e., strongly disagree to strongly agree) to approximately 20 computer ethics scenarios based on property and privacy issues. In some instances two scenarios were the same except for one twist, for example, the acceptability of making unauthorized copies of commercial software for private use and the acceptability of making unauthorized copies of commercial software for university work. We analyzed responses to this and other pairs to determine whether or not subjects care about context variables such as private use/university work and also for-profit/non-profit making (using university computing facilities), permission/no permission (using other people’s passwords), and consent & knowledge/without consent & knowledge (under surveillance). Context sensitivity was operationalized as selecting different values for a pair (e.g., agree to private use and disagree to university work).

Summary of Findings

Forty-six percent of a total of 251 respondents demonstrated context sensitivity to the private use/university work difference and 53% to for-profit/non-profit making. Sixty-five percent were sensitive to permission/no permission and 85% to consent & knowledge/without consent & knowledge. This finding supports Nissenbaum’s claims for the significance of norms of appropriateness and distribution. On average, women and students under the age of 25 were more context sensitive than men and older students.

REFERENCES

Buchanan, E. (2004) “Ethical Considerations for the Information Professions”, In R.A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 523-534.

Gotterbarn, D. (1995) “Computer Ethics: Responsibility Regained” In D. Johnson and H.Nissenbaum, eds. Computing, Ethics and Social Values. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 18-24

Moor, J. H. (2004) “Towards a Theory of Privacy for the Information Age.” In R.A. Spinello and H. T. Tavani, eds. Readings in CyberEthics. 2nd ed. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2004, 407-417.

Nissenbaum, Helen (2001) “Should I copy My Neighbor’s Software?” In D.M. Hester and P. Ford, eds., Computers and Ethics in the Cyberage. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp. 297-307.

Nissenbaum, Helen (2004) “Privacy As Contextual Integrity.” Washington Law Review, Vol. 79 (1), pp. 101-139.

Stallman, Richard (1992) “Why Software Should Be Free.” http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html. Accessed July 19, 2006.

Warren, Samuel and Louis Brandeis (1890) “The Right to Privacy.” Harvard Law Review, Vol. 14 (5), pp. 193-220.

AUTHOR
Mike Leigh

ABSTRACT

The use of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) to enhance the student higher education experience has continued to grow during the last decade. There has also been a corresponding growth in publications and conferences pertaining to their usage. The main focus of this work has been towards technological and pedagogical concerns with ethical issues being addressed to a much smaller extent. However, a range of ethical aspects, significant to VLEs, have been identified and discussed [McRobb and Stahl, 2007; Brey, 2004; Pearson and Koppi, 2006]. Research specifically addressing students’ attitudes towards the use of VLEs exists but is less common [Stahl, 2002].

This paper, firstly, identifies a range of ethical issues that are of relevance to students’ day-to-day usage of VLEs in their studies. Secondly, it discusses the results of an investigation into the levels of awareness and the attitudes of students to the ethical dimensions of VLE usage. This is distinct from much of the previous work that has been undertaken which address the ethical issues of VLEs from an institutional perspective, for example, Jefferies et al, (2007); Jones and Conole (2006), or those that include VLE usage as part of a broader study [Grodzinsky, et al, 2008; Prior, 2004; and Leigh and Prior, 2008].

A literature survey was undertaken which, together with the questionnaire results of a previous investigation into VLE usage [Leigh, 2006], was used to ascertain a range of ethical concerns pertaining to Higher Education, in general, and the use of VLEs in particular. Focus groups [Bryman, 2008] were employed in order to explore the students’ awareness of the ethical issues identified and their attitude towards them. Participants of these groups were chosen whose profile represented a cross-section of the divergent backgrounds of the university students including gender, age, ethnicity and particular learning requirements. This included the perspective of an unsighted student.

The ethical concerns explored in the focus groups included access to the VLE and to the learning activities within them; students’ expectations of behaviour when participating in such activities; the impact of VLEs on student learning styles; and privacy issues associated with their use of the VLE.

This paper addresses the findings from the focus group discussions which highlighted some interesting ethical gaps in the students’ awareness of issues pertaining to their VLE usage. For example, with regards to access to VLE materials and learning exercises the students’ awareness and attitude was largely governed by their own personal experience. If they had not faced access problems they were generally “not bothered” by potential inequality of access. Not surprisingly the converse of this was the case with the unsighted student. Similar attitudes and levels of awareness were seen around the issues of student behaviour when undertaking group learning activities and also around issues of privacy. However, in these cases students tended to have stronger opinions when they were affected by an issue.

It is clear from this study that there is an apparent ethical gap within the mindset of these students when using the VLE for their studies. It is perceptible that VLEs have been adopted to help enhance the student experience without sufficient attention being paid to ensuring that students are equipped to utilise such facilities in an ethical way. It would seem that although a subset of ethical issues are dealt with proactively by institutions, many ethical dilemmas are not addressed until something happens. This conclusion has been seen in other aspects of institutional VLE usage such as with online monitoring of staff and student activities [Leigh and Prior, 2008]. The implications of this shortfall are explored in this paper.

REFERENCES

Brey, P. (2004) Ethical issues for the Virtual University, Proceedings of the seventh international ETHICOMP conference, Syros, Greece, 14-16 April 2004

Bryman, A. 2008. Social Research Methods. 3rd ed. Oxford University Press.

Grodzinsky, F. S. Lilley, S. & Gumbus, A. 2008. Ethical implication of internet monitoring: a comparative study. Proceedings of the tenth international ETHICOMP conference, Mantua, Italy, September 2008

Jeffries, P, Stahl, B. C. & McRobb, S (2007): “Exploring the Relationships between Pedagogy, Ethics & Technology: Building a Framework for Strategy Development” In: Technology, Pedagogy and Education (16:1), 111 – 126

Jones, C. and Conole, G. (2006) Who will own the new VLE?: sharing practice, problems and alternative solutions, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ascilite Conference: Who’s learning? Whose technology?

Leigh, M. (2006) “Pedagogic Underpinning in the use of Virtual Learning Environments” DMU e-Learning Symposium, Leicester 5 May 2006

Leigh, M. and Prior, M. (2008) Multi-layered monitoring in virtual learning environments: filling the policy vacuum, Proceedings of the tenth international ETHICOMP conference, Mantua, Italy, September 2008

McRobb, S & Stahl, B. C. (2007): “Privacy as a Shared Feature of the e-Phenomenon: A Comparison of Privacy Policies in e-Government, e-Commerce and e-Teaching” International Journal of Information Technology and Management, Special Issue on “Making Sense of the E-Phenomenon”, edited by Feng Li, 232 – 249

Pearson, E. and Koppi, T. (2006) A pragmatic and strategic approach to supporting staff in inclusive practices for on-line learning, Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ascilite Conference: Who’s learning? Whose technology?

Prior, M. (2004) Surveillance-capable technologies in the workplace: some evidence of the views of the next generation of computer professionals. ETHICOMP 2004, Syros, Greece, 14-16 April 2004.

Stahl, Bernd Carsten [2002] Ethics and e-teaching: the students’ perspective. Communications of the IIMA, vol. 2 [no. 3], 51-62.