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I just joined a valuable Facebook group (no, really)

Facebook | Faculty Ethics on Facebook:

Name:
Faculty Ethics on Facebook
Type:
Internet & Technology - Cyberculture
Description:
A discussion forum for Facebook participants to suggest activity guidelines for faculty.

Proposed guidelines include:

1. Keeping official course activities in other online tools.

2. Never requiring students to participate in Facebook or having Facebook influence a course grade. An exception is for social research projects that use Facebook and make their connection to a course explicit.

3. Not friending students unless they request the connection.

4. Accepting friend requests from all students (unless the instructor makes the decision not to friend students at all).

5. Not looking at student profiles unless the faculty member has been friended by the student and even then using Facebook information judiciously and for educational purposes.

6. Faculty members should avoid association with groups with sexual content or political views that might offend certain students or compromise the student to teacher relationship.

7. Taking extreme care with privacy settings and faculty profile content to limit profiles to information relevant to educational purposes. A broad variety of information may be appropriate, however, given the area of expertise / subject, the local customs of an instructor's school, and the dynamics of his or her classroom. Content should be placed thoughtfully and periodically reconsidered to maintain this educational standard.

8. Exercising appropriate discretion when using Facebook for personal communications (with friends, colleagues, other students, etc.) with the knowledge that faculty behavior on Facebook may be used as a model by our students.

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