A new concern: Ethical decision making in students’ secondary use of data from their ePortfolios

Familiar areas of ePortfolio use by students include assessment, reflection and evidencing professional competencies. With an increasing emphasis on graduate employability across higher education, students are also encouraged to showcase their professional identity to virtual audiences not necessarily known to them, through social media and online settings. Despite the benefits of this wider use, there can be unintended consequences for the ePortfolio user and others they work with, including vulnerable groups like children, patients or clients. Current ePortfolio literature discusses ethical issues for the user, such as privacy and protection of data in an online environment, but as yet, has only limited discourse about privacy, consent and confidentiality of secondary use of others’ data. In response, this paper provides samples of ethical decision making scenarios that students may face in using ePortfolio information in social media or other online platforms to raise awareness of the issues for educators and students.