We have spotted quite a few students using generative AI in their essays this summer and applied standard academic misconduct proceedings, though in most cases the work was so bad they would’ve failed anyway.
Today I learned of one whose use was sufficiently extensive that they will fail their degree.
I am wondering if this is the first time a student has failed a whole degree for using AI?[…]
You make an excellent point about the impact of ChatGPT and others on written assignments. I’ve been in the online higher ed field designing online courses for almost 10 years now. I also teach online.
Having students regurgitate the same information over and over in the form of discussions and papers (or other assignments with names like blog, journal, etc) are starting to become problematic. Students generally don’t like this form of assessment, and as noted in this thread, it’s very difficult to be able to prove that a student has used ChatGPT.
The reason this is really exciting for someone like me is that it will drive innovation, whether universities want to or not. We can utilize other assessment tools that allow students to test their knowledge and learn through doing. Will all writing assignments go away? Certainly not. But I do think there’s so much opportunity for online higher education and I really do think these changes in technology will force new learning modalities to be developed.
~ end nerdy online education rant ~