Concept #7 Netiquette
“Good communication practice on the Internet is not something one ‘learns’, but something one practices so as to teach others, less familiar than yourself, how it is done.” (Curtin University of Technology – Internet Communications SP4 2008)
“Netiquette” is a word we cannot find in a normal dictionary. It means network etiquette. By etiquette, according to The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary, it means “conventional rules of personal behaviour in polite society.” Hence Netiquette refers to etiquette and courtesy on the Internet communications. It describes the good and bad manners of people in communication online. We live in a society with rules and laws, and this also applies to the Internet.
Every time we communicate electronically, we are typing our thoughts on a key board in front of a computer screen. We are not in physical interaction with the persons we are communicating with. This means that care must be taken when we communicate with someone online. It is easy to be rude online than it is in a face to face environment. It is important, therefore, not to say anything in online communication that we would not, otherwise, say to people to their face. Hence we must carefully plan the contents of our communications before we transmit them.
This is what “Netiquette” is all about: the rules and concepts of what is good and what is bad in net communications. Learning the “rules” of netiquette requires both practice and trial and error, to communicate effectively online. This concept may vary amongst different Internet communities. Sometime, different places online have different versions of acceptable Netiquette. Something that may be “fine” to say somewhere could be perceived as incredibly “rude” elsewhere. Situations do differ. The only way for us to combat this problem is firstly to do some groundwork; then study the information from the discussion boards and get a feel of how people in certain community communicate, before we conduct our online communication.
It pays to be polite with the wording in our messages. Our online communications must also be concise and informative, or they will not be well regarded. Our communications reflect our personality.
It is not good manners to go around correcting others mistakes in face to face communication and nor is it online. Care must be taken when pointing out errors to others. Always give the benefit of the doubt and assume the mistake was not intentional.
No one likes people with bad behaviour, which is why we have rules and concept. Behaving badly on the Internet can backfire. Discussion boards can keep posts up for a long period time before they are removed. Bad email messages are there for everyone to read. People’s comments are posted for the world to see, so show respect for others and that will generate an overall better netiquette for the world.
An important concept of Netiquette is that we must try to make things as pleasant and as enjoyable for other Internet users. An experienced Internet user can usually direct or teach new users how to effectively communicate online and thus improves the learning experience for everyone.
There never will be one set of netiquette rules for the whole World Wide Web, but as the old saying goes, “it does pay to treat people how you would like people to treat you”. The administrators of the forums and websites monitor will try to keep their websites within their own set of netiquette rules.
Site 1: Title: The Rules of Netiquette
Shea, V., (1994). Netiquette. (Retrieved December 29, 2008)
from http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
This website is built largely from extracts from the above writer’s book. Virgina Shea’s name is widely known in online-literature. This site contains some very interesting overview of Netiquette. Internet users should follow in Internet communication. ‘The Core Rules of Netiquette’ embraces many of the ideas covered in the Concepts document articles. The main point that Shea wants to make is to respect the other people in the cyber-world. Netiquette is useful and necessary. While it will not necessarily be followed faithfully, it does give something to look at, to the people that want to act respectfully on the Internet.
Site 2: Title: Student Guide: Netiquette
Macquarie University (2004). (Retrieved December 29, 2008)
Macquarie University Online Teaching Facility from
http://online.mq.edu.au/docs/neti.html
This Macquarie University website offers another view on Netiquette. It contains a list of guidelines for Network Etiquette which has been designed for learners to adapt and use to develop their own set of guidelines. It is useful and has a very practical application of the concept. With sub headings, such as: General politeness; Characteristics of online discussions; Hints for new users: this website is mainly aimed at beginners and those not so familiar with use of the Internet. It gives the readers a brief overview of what is involved, and acts as an introduction that may lead to further research.
Concept #13. Communication is not complete upon receipt
“The key to effective email management is to consistently and conscientiously respond to and act upon the email you receive, while recognising that others may not be as efficient as yourself.”
(Curtin University of Technology – Internet Communications SP4 2008)
“Communication is not complete upon receipt.” The truth of this statement, from the “concepts” point of view, lies in the fact that not all emails sent are read upon receipt. With today’s use of online communication, emails have become one of the most popular forms of communication. Communication is not complete unless both the sender and the receiver of emails respond properly.
Anyone can send out an email and assume that the recipient has read and acknowledged what the email was about, but that is only an assumption that this has happened. The email may not have been received, or the receiver may have seen it but got distracted, and forgot all about it. The person has not gone through with the information on the email due to human error and it has been processed incorrectly. This is the problem we face when dealing with email communication, there are always allowances for human errors.
On the receiving side, reading email is just like reading a newspaper or a magazine; people would normally view the headlines first, and find out what they want to read. The headline in a newspaper provides two things: it grabs our attention and informs us what the article is about; so we can decide whether or not we want to continue reading. Email subject lines need to do the same thing. We use the subject lines to inform the reader of what the email is about, in a few well-chosen words. We can include a title such as "Please respond by September 11".
If the sender includes the information in a long message without proper subject title, it will take the receiver a long time to find the right information.(1) When people get emails, most of them do not want SPAM or Junk mails. Appropriate use of the subject line, therefore, is important, as it increases the chances of our email being viewed and not deleted without being read. Leaving the subject line blank is also not a good practice.
Emails with proper subject lines will attract the receiver’s attention. And this will stop important emails from getting unread or deleted by mistake.
Even though emails are a form of asynchronous communication, the key factor in email management is the response time. Each person’s expectation of an acceptable response time, in which they should receive a reply, will vary from case to case. It is good practice to be consistent with response times and not leave emails unattended to for an extended period. If a question cannot be answered immediately, it is a matter of courtesy to respond as such to the sender. Even though a solution may not have been reached, the sender will feel satisfied that the email has been acknowledged or will be read in the not so distant future.
Responding to an email is the key to effective communication. Good communication is like a circuit; both ends of the wires must meet to form a circuit. Effective email communication requires both parties to fully comprehend the context of an email.
Site 1: Title: Request Read Receipt
Amit Agarwal on January 25, 2008. 2004-2009 Digital Inspiration – “Get a Read Receipt when friends open your email messages”. (Retrieved January 10, 2009) from:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/email/check-yahoo-gmail-email-read-receipts/2150/
Sometime, when we send out highly classified documents or information via email, we want to know if it has been:
(a) Delivered.
(b) Acknowledged by the recipient
Obviously we can physically request the recipient to acknowledge a reply upon receipt. However, it is also useful to use Microsoft Outlook with Exchange Server, as we can easily request read receipts and get notified when our email is opened by the recipients.
The only problem is that not every recipient will have a “read receipt’ feature turned on. Also, support for such tracking receipts is varied by email clients (for example, web email clients such as Hotmail or Yahoo! do not have this feature).
Site 2: Title: E-mail Read Receipt
World Start (No date). Tip #3273 - E-mail Read Receipt.
(Retrieved January 8, 2009) from:
http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/3273
This is another useful webpage that offers preventative measuring “tips” on “email read receipts”. It has information on how to set up read receipts on the computer for Outlook Express users. The step by step process in activating the read receipts is especially useful to beginners using the popular Outlook Express email program.
The site only offers information to assist the sender to keep track of the email once it has been sent. However, due to the nature of the technology, e-mail tracking cannot be considered an absolutely accurate indicator that a message was opened or read by the recipient.
Concept #21 – Threading
“Threading is what makes discussion groups - either Usenet news groups or, for example, this unit’s discussion group (accessed from the home page or the learning space page) - so valuable for enabling complex inter-flows of communication to take place in a manner that allows us to see the pattern of conversation and response.”
(Curtin University of Technology – Internet Communications SP4 2008)
Threading, in the case of a College or University, is a remarkable tool enabling communication between teachers and students to take place in an online learning environment.
This method of electronic messaging can be used to communicate at any time of the day, anywhere in the world (even when we are oceans apart), with almost instant delivery. Teachers and students can include attachments to their emails. They may post a question and ask the students to answer directly to the forum. The forum can be used for learners to post results of activities or experiences they have had during their online learning.
The discussion boards are our virtual academic learning community. Hence when using them, we must conform to netiquette. Discussion board is for exchanging information and questions with other students, meeting each other, arranging study groups, or even selling equipment, items, etc. This discussion forum is also for us to introduce ourselves and to discuss our work, ideas, and problems with each other.
The discussion board allows for asynchronous discussion. A student may wish to begin a discussion topic and write a brief note for other students to read. Then the other students may read this and respond. It is like placing an email on a noticeboard for everyone to see it and then have the opportunity to respond or begin a new topic. A topic 'thread' can continue until a new topic has been established.
Threading is a valuable tool on discussion boards, which allow massive amounts of posts to be arranged in a well structured and easy to navigate manner. Discussion boards allow threading, grouping posts by topic and order of response, that makes it easy to navigate to the information we require.
The threaded arrangement allows students to navigate to a particular post without having to wade through large quantity of materials which are not warranted. All we have to do is to follow the flow of a conversation, simply noting which users post the most informative information.
Threaded discussions also help encourage a sense of community. This is especially helpful in an education environment where it brings the class together as well as encouraging collaboration between students.(2) In an e-learning environment, the teachers can use threaded discussions to guide the flow of student discussions. The teachers can lead students on to the right path, allowing the students to think critically, reflectively and collaboratively. Without this tool, distance education can be a burden, both to the students and to their instructors.
One major success of online learning is the effective use of threaded discussions. Most threaded discussions are searchable, which allows us to quickly find what we are looking for and also to view other related posts. Posts are usually kept on threaded discussion boards for a long period of time; hence it is advisable for us not to post anything inappropriate. We must always follow the thread, and give sensible postings.
Threading is what makes discussion groups a success.
Site 1: Title: Creative Use of Threaded Discussion Areas
Peters, K., (2003), Creative Use of Threaded Discussion Areas,
(Retrieved January 18, 2009), from http://www.webct.com/OTL/ViewContent?contentID=898084
This is Karen M. Peters’ website. Peters is a member of faculty at Penn State University in the USA. The article was published by WebCT.com Library, the same company that wrote Curtin’s online learning area software. This website focuses on the use of threading for educational purposes; Karen explains why it is important to all students.
Karen Peters gives details of the advantages of threaded discussion, and explains why threaded discussions are so useful in an online learning environment. The writer also believes that threaded discussions can increase student motivation and participation in class discussions.
The site also contains links to other useful information, such as Asynchronous learning environments.
Site 2: Title: Discussion Tools & Technology-Rich Learning
Larry Johnson & Annette Lamb, 2007 – “Teacher Tap”
(Retrieved January 18, 2009), from
http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic101discuss.html
The “Teacher Tap” is a useful site, which provides resource mainly to assist teachers and librarians, in the use of technology in teaching and learning by providing easy access to practical, online resources and activities.
The advantage is that it provides a very easy way for an inexperienced user to learn how threaded discussions work. It is well presented and there are step by step guides for creating your own forums.
Apart from thread discussions forums, the site provides other resources to learn about other approaches to discussions and interaction on the Internet, such as “Blogging’, “Live Chats and Video Conferencing”, and “Netiquette and Safety on the Net "
Concept #26: Privacy and Security
“The Internet is a profoundly ‘open’ system and advanced Internet users are cautious about either accepting or sending material from and to unknown sources and are careful in releasing information about themselves in any form. Conceptually, the Internet challenges us to take greater responsibility for the protection of privacy and security than perhaps we are used to when dealing with the media.”
(Curtin University of Technology – Internet Communications SP4 2008)
The Internet provides one of the easiest communications tools ever afforded mankind. It is quick, convenient, cheap....but it can also be unsecured. The incredible growth of the Internet has excited businesses and consumers alike with its promise of changing the way we live and work. It is extremely easy to buy and sell goods all over the world while sitting in front of a computer monitor. But security is a major concern on the Internet, especially when we are using it to send sensitive information to outside parties.
There are always threats to a user’s privacy and security on the Internet, such as viruses, SPAM and identity theft. Most of the risks can be avoided, but it requires great care when it comes to giving out our personal information.
Our computers hold a lot of personal information and documents. It is up to us to protect our information. Computer viruses can cripple our computers. Computer hackers can steal our identities by hacking into our computers and obtain our data or personal details. SPAM is another unwanted concoct that can be sent via email onto our computer.
We have viruses because we have downloaded an infected file. This can be avoided by being careful of what we click on. Sometimes, viruses and spy-ware can infect even a careful Internet user’s computer. This is why we should install Spy-ware removal and Anti-Virus programs.(3) While anti-virus and spy-ware programmes can help us in certain way, our computer is not hack proof as people can still find a way.
It is advisable not to open or click on any links in emails from unknown senders. Very often unscrupulous people, pretending to be from a bank, will send us emails, asking us to click on certain link and requesting us to up-date our details by typing in our username and password. If this happens, ignore and delete the emails, as all reputable banks do not request personal details through an email.
While many people think of e-mail as a convenient alternative to a telephone conversation, and just as private, there is a difference. E-mail is as public as a postcard and leaves a written record long after it has been erased. Any skilled person can recover the email message's ghost somewhere deep in the bowels of a networked system.
A simple but straightforward security method is to only keep sensitive information on removable storage media like portable flash memory drives or external hard drives. The most popular forms of security is encryption, the process of encoding information in such a way that only the person with the “key” can decode it.
Without encryption, information passed on the Internet is not only available for virtually anyone to read, but is often stored for years on servers that can change hands or become compromised in any number of ways. Hence, encryption is something worth considering.
In conclusion, the Internet can be a dangerous place, but with some common sense and awareness of the risk involved in giving out personal information, protecting ourselves on the Internet is not as hard as it sounds. “But with awareness as your safety net, you can minimize the chance of an Internet mishap.” (4)
Site 1: Title: Protecting your privacy on the Internet
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Australian Government (2008)
(Retrieved January 27, 2009), from
http://www.privacy.gov.au/internet/internet_privacy/
This is the Office of the Privacy Commissioner’s website, published by the Australian Government. It provides information on “what the Internet is” and “Privacy threat on the Web”. It also provides a list of “privacy threats on the Web”, which aims to help people to protect themselves against other bad people on the Internet.
This site is very useful as it shows peoples how to protect themselves against intruders on the Web, preventing other people from intercepting their e-mail, by using technique call cryptography. The site recommends PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), a free program that uses cryptographic techniques to protect information.
Site 2: Title: Protecting Your Privacy on the Internet
Santoro, G. Centre for Academic Computing, Pennsylvania State University (2006) (Retrieved January 27, 2009), from
http://css.its.psu.edu/news/nlfa00/privacy.html
This website, published by the Pennsylvania State University, contains similar information provided by The Office of the Australian Privacy Commissioner, which provide a long list of privacy and security issues faced by Internet users. It provides information and tips on how to protect against “hackers”. It is extremely useful as it contains many checklists of things to look out for when conducting a particular activity on the Internet.
This article contains information on issues and technologies surrounding the problem of personal privacy on the Internet. Resources and tips include managing the privacy risk includes: Cookies; Online Databases; Secure Servers; Carnivore; Encryption; Firewalls and Network Connections.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, M. “Smart Thinking” Oxford University Press (2004)
Skills for Critical Understanding and writing (2nd Ed.)
Amit Agarwal on January 25, 2008.
2004-2009 Digital Inspiration – “Get a Read Receipt when friends open your email messages”. (Retrieved January 10 2009) from:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/email/check-yahoo-gmail-email-read-receipts/2150/
Johnson L. & Lamb A., 2007 – “Teacher Tap”
(Retrieved January 18, 2009), from
http://www.eduscapes.com/tap/topic101discuss.html
Macquarie University (2004). (Retrieved December 29, 2008)
Macquarie University Online Teaching Facility from http://online.mq.edu.au/docs/neti.html
Peters, K., (2003), Creative Use of Threaded Discussion Areas,
(Retrieved January 19 2009), from http://www.webct.com/OTL/ViewContent?contentID=898084
Santoro, G. Centre for Academic Computing, Pennsylvania State University (2006) (Retrieved January 27, 2009), from
http://css.its.psu.edu/news/nlfa00/privacy.html
Shea, V., (1994). Netiquette. Albion Books.
(Retrieved December 29, 2008)
from http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html
Macquarie University (2004). (Retrieved January 7, 2009)
Turner, G W, The Australian Concise Oxford Dictionary
Oxford University Press, Melbourne (1987)
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner, Australian Government (2008)
(Retrieved January 27, 2009), from
http://www.privacy.gov.au/internet/internet_privacy/
World Start (Date unknown). Tip #3273 - E-mail Read Receipt.
(Retrieved January 8, 2009) from:
http://www.worldstart.com/tips/tips.php/3273
OTHER REFERENCES
(1) See “NET 11” course, the email tasks (“Module 2.1”) “for effective emails and hints and guide to how to communicate powerfully by email”.
(2) Peters, K. M. (2003). Creative Use of Threaded Discussion Areas, Part 1. (Retrieved January 18, 2009) from:
http://www.webct.com/OTL/ViewContent?contentID=898084
“In a learning situation the primary goal of any discussion is to promote thinking. Web-based discussion tools provide many ways to increase discussion between class members and faculty. Researchers have found that adding threaded discussion areas to a course increases student motivation and participation in class discussions.”
(3) It is also important to update these programs regularly as the spies are getting smarter all the time.
(4) Federal Trade Commission http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/computers/stopthink/click.htm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/idtheft/
http://www.privacyresources.org/
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/9648/pgut-links.html
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