Sound familiar?

Jenny was getting anxious, her mobile phone kept buzzing at work alerting her to massive amounts of emails for her online course. When she went in to check her messages on her break, she realized that most of the emails should not have been sent to her. One classmate hit "reply all" to respond to a question and then everyone was emailing them back to be removed from the conversation. Other discussion posts were not even related to the topic that was supposed to be discussed. It was a huge waste of time and caused her great frustration.

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Other People's Time

Your classmates and faculty lead busy lives, just like you do, and don't have time to waste reading or responding to errant emails or discussion posts. As an online learner, it is your responsibility to make sure that the time spent reading your words isn't wasted. Make your written communication meaningful and to the point, without thoughless text or graphics or attachments that take way to long to download. Also, remember that you are not the center of attention in all forums. Others may have different ideas and opinions than you, so respect that!

Other People's Property

Here is a story that is shared on the 10 core rules of Netiquette website. It is a great reminder that Netiquette rules should not be ignored and that serious consequences could result from not following them!

The case of the snoopy foreign correspondent...

In 1993, a highly regarded foreign correspondent in the Moscow bureau of the Los Angeles Times was caught reading his coworkers' email. His colleagues became suspicious when system records showed that someone had logged in to check their email at times when they knew they hadn't been near the computer. So they set up a sting operation. They planted false information in messages from another one of the paper's foreign bureaus. The reporter read the notes and later asked colleagues about the false information. Bingo! As a disciplinary measure, he was immediately reassigned to another position at the paper's Los Angeles bureau. The moral: Failing to respect other people's privacy is not just bad Netiquette. It could also cost you your job.