Forum Post
Over the course of this semester, I have noticed a few trickles of students trying to use AI to do their work for them. It seems easy enough to spot at the moment because it reads like gibberish and isn’t about the reading assignment at all. I would like to know a few things. Firstly, what can we as faculty do to better prepare ourselves for this technology? Secondly, what is Canvas/Turnitin doing to help on this front? Thirdly, how will we handle this on the academic integrity front with WSU Center for Community Standards?
Ryan Booth
WSU History Department Faculty
Response
May 4, 2023 Update: Please see the response from Bill Davis, Interim Vice Provost and Karen Metzner, Assistant Dean of Students & Director of the Center for Community Standards. AI and Academic Integrity Response to Faculty Senate Concerns (PDF).
Regarding how faculty can prepare: WSU hosted a workshop on ChatGPT as one of its PIT Stops. You can watch the Transformational Change Initiative — Pit Stop recording here. There are also increasing resources online – a google search will produce sites with suggestions. See e.g.: https://teaching.pitt.edu/resources/chatgpt-resources-for-faculty/
Regarding academic integrity: Turnitin, ChatGPT and others are working on software to detect AI versus human produced writing, but at least as of now these produce errors in both directions and are probably not reliable enough. Most of what we’re reading recommends against banning ChatGPT, but instead thinking about how to use it as a tool. The resources above have some ideas about how to do this.
Christine Horne
Faculty Senate Chair
Comments
I too am encountering student essays made by ChatGPT or a similar bot. One student is turning in polished, 5-paragraph essays as responses in the class discussion forums on Canvas.
A computer student at Princeton has created an app, GPTZero, that detects essays written by AI-powered language. I have found it helpful for confirming my suspicions: https://gptzero.me/
My next task will be discussing with the student/s in question. There is a novel situation for me, asserting plagiarism without a source document I can point to.
I would like to see WSU explicitly address AI-powered writing in the Academic Integrity Statement we are now linking to in our syllabi.