Ethical Issues

Identify any ethical issues raised by your software.

• Animosity between professors may result from learning about each other's relative performances.
  • Ensure that professors cannot be linked to grade performance based upon information accessible to their peers.
• Insufficient informed consent procedures may result in concerns pertaining to data collection usage.
  • Fully and transparently disclose any and all uses for the users’ data.
• Skewed student reviews could affect performance evaluations for the professors, which could inaccurately compare their performance in comparison to the rest of their peers - students who are upset with the class are more likely to evaluate.
  • Proportion of student reviews to total students could be displayed to further contextualize the quality of the user’s ratings.
• The moderators of the data could subconsciously develop the site to be biased towards specific professors (overall performance calculation could include non-performance related factors such as gender, race, sexuality, or any other factor that could be determined from available information on professors).
  • A team of diverse moderators can check and review each other’s work. Users can report any concerns they believe may paint them or their performance inaccurately.