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Ethical principles guiding the assessment of  students with varying degrees of access to technology
Respect for Persons
	This principle refers to the delicate balancing act between treating our students as fully capable and intelligent, and recognizing that some of our students will need extra help, in particular, additional assistance with Web learning. It also means fully disclosing information about student/course expectations related to technology, allowing students to make informed choices about their participation in the course prior to assessments.
		We can neither assume convenient access nor even a common perception of value for Web-based learning. Students in this study differed in both regards. Respect for students as capable and intelligent learners compels us to employ the best instructional tools available to us, without a presumption of ignorance on the part of our learners.  It clearly also compels us to respond to the needs of those requiring additional assistance by helping them gain access (at various levels) to those tools necessary for success.
Beneficence
	The Hippocratic principle of "do no harm" applies also to our pedagogical methods. We should seek to minimize risks and maximize benefits to our students. This is again a balancing act. We want to minimize the risks of failure, poor grades, etc.; at the same time we minimize the risk that our students might find themselves socially, economically and professionally disadvantaged in an information and techonology-driven global arena.
		Students in this study who were compelled to increase their computer skills through their courses did not necessarily view that requirement negatively. Many appreciated the new learning and viewed it as a valuable enhancement to both their personal and professional life. The increasing demands for expectations of the computer literacy of graduate students spawns a conflicting moral requirement: If we fail to integrate these skills into our courses at every level, we may indeed be doing harm by failing to provide our students with tools they need to be successful professionally. Furthermore, there was a lack of significant correlation between end assessments and levels of access, suggesting that even from a grading perspective ethical requirements regarding beneficence were not being violated.
Justice
	On the one hand, differing levels of access does create a non-level field of learning. Some students are being asked to put forth greater effort than others, either in curative learning or in obtaining physical access to complete the same tasks.  Furthermore, graded activities related to technology appear to discriminate between those who have had differing opportunities for previous learning unrelated to the specific course matter.
		This seeming inequity, however, fails to rise to level of a violation of the ethical principles related to justice.  All university coursework is assigned to students of varying abilities, diverse educational backgrounds, and dissimilar aptitudes and attitudes towards course material.   In such a situation, concern for "justness" can be neither a guarantor of equal success across all boundaries, nor an assurance that all previous opportunity inequities can be remedied.  What we can do is ensure that the treatment and educational efforts students receive at our hands is equitable and does not penalize membership in differing social, racial, gender, or ethnic groups.
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