Ethics and Social Responsibility (PHIL 1404) at UoPeople

Ethics and Social Responsibility (PHIL 1404) is another course I took at the UoPeople the last term. In the class, you learn topics like business ethics & economic relevance, ancient and modern theories of ethics, virtue ethics, rights & duties in the business context, culture and business ethics, social entrepreneurship & organizational integrity, employee’s ethics, workplace environment & company loyalty, organizational stakeholders, fair trade, environmental and social responsibility, inclusion, diversity, environmental sustainability & animal rights, professional ethics, work environments & marketing ethics, corporate responsibility, environmental sustainability, & business ethics. You learn all that through various real-life case studies. 

In short, you learn about what’s ethical and unethical in our personal and business life. However, many students didn’t learn anything in the course because I’ve never come across so many cheaters in my academic life other than this class. By cheaters, I mean students who copy their entire assignments verbatim from websites like Course Hero. I never report anyone with poor APA skills, but cheaters get on my nerves. The irony is that students were learning about ethics in the course, yet they were cheating. Let’s make the UoPeople cheaters free by reporting them! You can do so by going here every time you spot one.

My class had 24 students. It was a big class for such a course, and I didn’t notice anyone dropping the course. My instructor was from Israel and had a PH.D. He had been teaching at the UoPeople for quite a while. He was a part of various research libraries, international scholarly publishing houses, communities, blogs, and peer-reviewed journals. When he provided feedback, it was an extension of your work using journals rather than the quality of your post. He was very active in the Discussion Forums and changed grades on his own at the end of each week.

This class felt like an elective to me. You get two books assigned to you in the course. Each week you read a case study from them to do your assignments. In my view, the chapters in the books are not only well written but also very enlightening. I learned quite a lot from them. The assignments require plenty of critical thinking, though. The course is also a bit relaxed when it comes to Written Assignments and Learning journals. You don’t have to write them every week. Most of the students in the class were very civil, but some acted very arrogantly, sadly. The Written Assignments weighed quite heavily (5% each or 20% in total for 4 assignments) in this class. You’ve to write 8 Discussion posts, 4 Written Assignments, and 4 Learning Journals in the course.

The Graded quizzes in this course were a bit difficult. It’s the first course so far where I had to take three Graded Quizzes. You’ve to do them in the 3rd, 5th, and 7th week. Each Graded Quiz has 25 questions, and you’ve to do complete them within 30 minutes. Just like BUS 2207, the quizzes had “select one or more answers” (checkboxes) questions. The questions mostly involved ethical theories, principles, results of lawsuits, which Act was passed when, abbreviation questions, and so on. Just like any other class, reading the prescribed chapters fully is very significant in the course. I felt it was more so in this one, given the difficulty of the quizzes. It’s also the only course so far where this fact was acknowledged.

The Final exam of PHIL 1401 at the UoPeople had 50 questions. You’ve to finish the exam within 60 minutes. I found the Final Exam easier than the Graded Quizzes. Some of the questions came from the previous self-Graded, Graded, and Final Review quizzes. In the end, I ended up with an A+, and I am proud of my work and effort in the course. In a nutshell, you can ace the course if you do your readings, make good notes, and practice the quizzes thoroughly.