ABSTRACT
Institutional concern for the ethics of language assessment is evident in the attention that the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) has given to its own ethical foundation and to how it presents that foundation to its stakeholders. ILTA has published the ILTA Code of Ethics (International Language Testing Association [ILTA], 2000) and is currently working on a code of practice. In this introduction, consideration is given to the need for ethics to be looked at in terms of the establishment of ILTA and the wider professionalism of the activity. Examples of the kinds of dilemmas that a code of ethics can help clarify are given and an introduction provided for each of the articles in this special issue.
