Solving Ethical Issues in eLearning Keynote Address Solving Ethical Issues in eLearning

The emergence of the information age has changed the world forever. The Internet and frantic growth in communication technologies have had one of the most profound and visible effects of any invention in modern history. Web technologies have changed how we communicate, how we make purchases, and how we learn and educate ourselves. There is a strong belief in the education community that the traditional teaching-learning models do not scale to meet the new challenges created by emerging technologies. eLearning provides all the necessary tools to meet those challenges. eLearning is available to anyone, anywhere in the world; all a learner needs is the access to a Web browser. eLearning is described as online delivery of information, communication, education, and training. eLearning is also a good example of the convergence of the learning and the Internet. While the global increase in the use of the Internet has provided numerous benefits to our colleges and universities, it has also extended traditional problems of cheating, plagiarism, and violation of privacy, vandalism, theft, and spying into the cyberspace. Although eLearning has provided the learner with all the freedom to access and manage information, it has also created new issues around ethical learning practices, personal integrity and accountability. This paper will discuss these issues in an eLearning environment. It will also attempt to provide suggestions and possible solutions to some of these problems