Ethics can be defined as the basic principles and fundamental concepts of decent human conduct. Ethics includes universal values which are essential in quality lives of humans such as human rights, equity for women and men, obedience to the rule of law, concern for safety and good health and for the environment (Carr, 2005). The concept of ethics purposes to find solutions to the questions of human morality by defining good and evil, justice and crime, virtue and vice or right and wrong. Moral philosophy is in the field of intellectual inquiry and is related to the concepts of value theory, moral psychology, and descriptive ethics.
Copyright laws highly affect instructors as they determine what they can use and they cannot use. Copyright can be defined as the legal right which is entitled to an author, publisher, playwright, composer production, and a distributor of an exclusive publication or any other artistic work. Copyright laws protect how authors express their ideas. When instructors use materials from outside sources such as journals, textbooks, internet, then the law requires that they need to cite the sources from which they get the materials. The instructors should set examples even as they teach the students on the issues to do with copyright infringement.
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There are many copyrighted works which help the instructors and students in education. Even so, it may not make sense if the instructors buy a license for these works to demonstrate an idea or to back an assertion of the idea. The instructors are allowed to use the copyrighted works only if they follow the guidelines of fair use of the information. Another copyright laws which affect the instructors is the public domain. This is when the instructors use materials which are either expired or ineligible for copyright.
Instructors who are found to infringe the copyright laws risk facing disciplinary actions which can even extend to being charged depending on how gross the infringement goes. When an institution is known to be using unoriginal pieces of materials for teaching, then the reputation of that particular institution would be damaged. Instructors should be the best role models for their students. Whenever they infringe the copyright laws, they do not expect the students to do the same and thus the whole teaching process is affected.
There is a general agreement that instructors and schools should play a role in establishing honest societies. While most people think that those students are the ones who participate in cheating, several studies have shown that cheating is not limited to students but extend to the instructors. An example of cheating is when an instructor collaborates with a student and provides the student with answers to exams (Strike & Soltis, 2015). Once an instructor has been charged with cheating according to the code guiding instructors, the institution's procedures for infractions of academic integrity are used to determine the innocence or guilt. When found guilty, several disciplinary actions can be taken ranging from suspension to even termination. Cheating hurts honest students who are genuinely struggling to get knowledge. It destroys the whole idea of learning and produces a group of dishonest people in the society. For instance, a surgeon who cheated to get the certificate would be risking people's lives in the society.
Plagiarism is when an individual presents another person's work as if it was his own whether or not it is intentionally done. This happens anytime an original source does not receive any proper acknowledgment. Plagiarism affects all of the people who get involved in it. When an instructor does not pay attention to plagiarism then the whole academic process is affected. Instructors who allow plagiarism fail to gauge the materials they use as either useful or not (Amos, 2014). Academic plagiarism negatively affects the entire academic community since academic success is founded on the ability of the institution to impact both corporate and public policy and so with high levels of plagiarism most institutions lose creditability or standing. Instructors who are found to participate in plagiarism risk facing disciplinary action which can extend to termination.
While most teachers continue to demonstrate high professionalism and positive relationships with their students, a few of them are still caught exercising unprofessionalism and negative relationships with their students. Some instructors seek to gain approval and acceptance by their students and therefore they become too friendly and unprofessional with the students (McGrath & Van Bergen, 2015). These kinds of teachers give students too much latitude and treat them as their peers. For this reason, they do not support the professional standards which are set for the teaching profession (McGrath & Van Bergen, 2015). Another type of negative student teachers relationship is sexual relationships in which teachers give students undeserved marks for sexual favors. Any instructor who is found guilty of negative relationships with the student's risks termination. The administration in the institution investigates and gives charges according to how the case is determined. If the teacher is found to breach the professional standards set for the teaching profession, then the charges are executed accordingly.
Whereas the military personnel come from different religious, ethnic and financial background, professional ethics is what binds different soldiers together. Ethics is an inherent part of the military discipline. Ethics plays the most integral role in the military. Ethics helps the military to protect people's lives and give security to a nation even in controversial or critical situations. Being a military person requires that one should be a team person since battlefield requires teamwork. Without ethics, this cannot be possible. Ethics is important to the army since it affects the decision they make a military team. If ethics is not taught in the military and if they do not model ethics in their behaviors then they would not enforce good values on civilians.
References
Amos, K. A. (2014). The ethics of scholarly publishing: exploring differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication across nations. Journal of the Medical Library Association: JMLA , 102 (2), 87.
Buccafusco, C., & Fagundes, D. (2015). The moral psychology of copyright infringement. Minn. L. Rev. , 100 , 2433.
Carr, D. (2005). Professionalism and ethics in teaching . Routledge.
McGrath, K. F., & Van Bergen, P. (2015). Who, when, why and to what end? Students at risk of negative student–teacher relationships and their outcomes. Educational Research Review , 14 , 1-17.
Strike, K., & Soltis, J. F. (2015). The ethics of teaching . Teachers College Press.
