Exploring Ethical Considerations and Challenges in Online Assessment

The use of online learning has grown worldwide in the last years, and the events produced by the COVID-19 pandemic have only served to boost this growth even more. Some authors claim that online learning is more universal, accessible and inclusive than traditional face-to-face education, but is this true? Are there any potential risks proper of online education (and, particularly, of online assessment) that have not been considered yet? This work tries to partially address such question by exploring the main ethical issues and challenges that can appear in the context of online assessment. As the paper shows, online assessment arises some ethical concerns, as well as some technical considerations that might not appear in traditional face-to-face evaluation methods, but which can have a negative and discriminatory effect over some students. This position paper presents some ethical concerns and challenges to consider, classifies them according to their context (social, personal, or educational) and points towards some potential solutions that can help mitigate the detrimental effects of online assessment. The goal of this work is to show that online assessment can have negative effects and add undue burdens unto the students, and to present some preliminary considerations in order to foster reflection and inspire discussion.