Press release
March 27, 2025 – EduEvidence has expanded its certification portfolio with the introduction of a new ethics certification, reinforcing its commitment to the 5Es framework—efficacy, effectiveness, ethics, equity, and environment. This latest certification aims to provide a clear benchmark for evaluating ethical considerations in EdTech on a global scale.
A Research-Driven Approach to Ethics in EdTech
The foundation of this certification stems from a comprehensive research paper that synthesized key ethical concerns in educational technology. The report, “Ethics in EdTech: Consolidating Standards For Responsible Data Handling And Usercentric Design” by Ayça Atabey; Cory Robinson; Anna Lindroos Cermakova; Andra Siibak and Natalia Ingebretsen Kucirkova established consolidated benchmarks to assess EdTech tools against globally recognized ethical standards.
EduEvidence’s Head of Strategic Partnerships, Anjali Nambiar, played a pivotal role in refining this research. Drawing from her thesis at MIT, Nambiar spearheaded the effort to translate theoretical insights into practical evaluation criteria. Her research examined the data protection and privacy policies governing EdTech organizations and explored how these ethical considerations can be strengthened to better safeguard student data, particularly in GenAI-enabled EdTech. These insights informed the development of the ethics certification at EduEvidence.
Collaborative Development and Real-World Testing
To ensure its robustness, the certification’s criteria and rubric were piloted with selected EdTech companies and iteratively refined. EduEvidence collaborated with Digital Promise, through an ongoing partnership, to simultaneously develop a certification for AI and Responsibility in EdTech.
This partnership ensures coherent guidance for EdTech companies in the U.S. and internationally, helping them navigate ethical challenges in product development. Together, EduEvidence and Digital Promise aim to create a standardized ethical framework, assisting companies in making ethically sound design and policy decisions.
The First Certified Companies are:
- Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform enabling interactive quizzes and discussions to enhance engagement and knowledge retention. It upholds strong ethical protection practices, continuously evaluates its policies, and maintains transparent processes, earning it a gold-level rating on the ethics framework.
- LitLab.ai is an edtech company providing a customizable library of decodable books to support early literacy. With various interoperability certifications and ethical safeguards for user data protection and safety, they are continuously enhancing their practices to strengthen ethical standards, earning a silver-level rating on the framework.
- classroom.cloud is a cloud-based edtech platform that supports both in-person and remote learning with real-time instruction, assessment, collaboration, and monitoring tools. Committed to high standards of data protection, they have begun implementing robust policies to strengthen user privacy, earning a bronze-level certification on the ethics framework.
What This Means for the Future of Ethical EdTech
As educational technology continues to evolve, ethical considerations are more important than ever. The EduEvidence ethics certification provides EdTech companies with a structured, research-backed approach to embedding ethics into their products. This initiative is a step forward in ensuring trust, transparency, and responsible innovation in the global EdTech landscape.
About EduEvidence
EduEvidence, through its platform, provides independent verification and certification services for Edtech companies. The EduEvidence List and its robust certifications support education technology providers in demonstrating the effectiveness and quality of their products to a global audience. EduEvidence aims to be the premier global resource for verified educational tools.
Media Contact:
EduEvidence: Saila Juuti, certifications@eduevidence.org