Ethical considerations on the use of massive data-based technologies in UNED

Abstract

This document draws up an ethical position about the use of massive data-based technologies is drawn, with a particular focus on the teaching and learning processes in UNED. We intend to raise awareness on the concrete risks associated with the potential advantages of using those technologies, and we set out some important questions and some possible answers to them, including nine essential cautions which can provide a sound basis for any projects requiring the use of massive data in UNED. In the first place, we explain what we understand by an ethics of care, in which the priority must be to take care of the students through the use of their data and, at the same time, to care about any data-based intervention being clean in its presumptions and bias-free. Then we consider a selection of previous works that have inspired ours, and we enumerate key questions over which any institution must ponder before starting to work with personal data. Finally, we state nine cautions that our institution adheres to and that every member of the University has been invited to deliberate upon.