Rule 8: Don’t Abuse Your Power

There may be times where you will find yourself as the ultimate expert in your discussion forum. Or, maybe you are a system administrator. This does not mean that you have the right to talk down to the others on the post or to take advantage of those using the system you are in charge of maintaining. Let’s review some examples of this rule in action:

Let’s look at an example of this rule in action:

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Scenerio 1

You are the administrator for an LMS system where you can login as any one of the users. You notice that one of your good friends has not completed a course on time. Because you know she is incredibly swamped this week, you decide to take the course for her and tell her she can retake it when she has time next week. This way she will not be out of compliance. Was this an abuse of power?

 

Yes- This was an appropriate use of power. You were trying to do the right thing and not let a user get overwhelmed.

No - This was an abuse of power. It would have been better to push back a due date if the user was truly overwhelmed rather than taking it for her.

Scenerio 2

A fellow student responds to your post. Is this an abuse of power? “As an expert in this field, I feel you have truly grasped the concept of LMS work.Great job! Just a thought: you may want to consider looking at the the LMS as a working training system, rather than a place to take online courses. This may help you to visualize another level of use.

 

Yes- The post was appropriate. The poster was an expert, but was not condescending when providing feedback.

No - The post was an abuse of power.