Online Safety, Legal Concerns and Ethical Practice for Learners

Students should be educated in safe, ethical and legal practices online, just as they are educated in safe, ethical and legal practices in the playground, or in society. The dangers learners face online are numerous and seem daunting because of the seemingly unknown aspect of the offender. Students need to be explicitly educated three main areas, listed in the table below. The education resources listed on the 3^rd column are a series of links to excellent resources relating to each area of concern.

Area	Concerns	Educational Resources
Online Safety	Exposure to inappropriate materials – Pornographic, sexually explicit, offensive, hateful and violent content and illicit materials Stranger danger – on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Wikis Harassment and Bullying – a major concern in the last 5 years Identity theft – hackers can steal unwary student’s information that is left lying around online Child identity protection – student identity should never be revealed online.	Protecting Online Families CyberSmart - Australian Government
Ethical Practice	Referencing – correct acknowledgement of information and quotes from other people. Proper sourcing of information – Wikipedia is not an effective source, while Encyclopaedia Brittanica is a safer source of information. Students need to have the tools to be able to make judgements about sources	CQUniversity - Why Is Referencing Important? University of Exeter - Referencing Guide
Legal Ramifications	Copyright – it is so easy to copy information from various sources around the web and post them without regard for copyright law. Students need to be informed about the right and wrong regarding copyright. 10% rule for educational purposes. Creative Commons – a place for free sourced materials without a copyright tag, rather a licence that allows them to be used freely.	Smart Copying Creative Commons Australia