Ethical Issues of ICT Use by Teacher Trainers: Use of E-books in Academic Settings

In an attempt to address the issue of ethics in ICT use by university teacher trainers, the current study aimed to investigate academics’ downloading and sharing e-books as well as the reasons that led them to be involved in this piracy. The participants included 140 teacher trainers working at faculties of education in Turkey, and a questionnaire with ten items on downloading e-books was used as the data collection instrument. The findings revealed that the downloading and sharing e-books was also a common practice among the teacher trainers, not just the students. Several reasons were provided by the participants, the main of which was found to be the participants’ not reaching the books they needed in the physical and/or digital library. The findings also revealed the participants were well aware that downloading and sharing e-books without paying to the publisher was illegal.