Ethical Analysis of Publisher and Faculty Roles in Building and Using Electronic Educational Products

Abstract

Educational materials are developed by publishers but educational methods utilizing these instructional materials are selected and implemented by faculty members. This article examines ethical issues in developing and using electronic educational materials designed for healthcare education at the undergraduate level. An ethical faramework called “the four principles with attention to scope” was used to examine the roles of publihsers and faculty members in development and usage of electronice healthcare educational materials. In particular, we donducted an ethical analysis to explore the extent to which publishers and faculty achieve the four ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. The results of this analysis suggest that both publishers and faculty members do not achieve what is required by these four ethical principles. However, the analysis is complicated by confounding of publishers’ roles in developing educational materials and faculty members’ roles in selecting and implementing instructional materials for students.