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Preventing Student Plagiarism: A Guide for Faculty

Why Students Need to Know about Generative AI

Most of our students entering the workforce will be using AI daily, either by choice or by requirement. AI is less likely to eliminate jobs, than it is to transform jobs, and the difference in employability within a field will likely be down to who uses AI and who doesn't. Our students need us to allow them to use and critically discuss AI in the classroom, as applicable, while maintaining the rigor and values of our discipline areas.

Modified from the Tacoma Community College Guide For Faculty: Generative AI (ChatGPT): Leveraging generative AI in teaching and learning (under construction)

Generative AI and Academic Integrity

AI tools have the potential to generate academic outputs which meet the requirement of particular assessment types, including essays, reports,  tests etc.
This presents a number of key challenges for educators.

  • As AI capabilities expand, it becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain what has been generated by digital tools and what has been generated by a human. As a result, generative AI poses an increasing threat to academic integrity in all disciplines, particularly to text-based and computational assignments.
  • Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can be used to take ‘shortcuts’ with assignments.
  • Lines are blurring between plagiarism, fraud, and cheating: particularly where students are unclear on the boundaries between legitimate use of artificial intelligence (for example, spell-check, voice-to-text, grammar support tools etc.) and fraudulent use of AI-generated text presented as a student’s own work.

Modified from Generative Artificial Intelligence & Academic Integrity (Centre for Academic Practice, Trinity College Dublin, 2023).

The recently revised UC Student Code of Conduct lists "unauthorized use of artificial intelligence" as a form of academic misconduct under "Cheating" (p.10).

Use your syllabi to communicate whether and how generative AI tools can be used in your courses. Find links to sample syllabus statements in Resources on Generative AI and ChatGPT.

Resources listed below include tips on responding to challenges related to use of AI in student work with changes to assessment design.

Resources on Generative AI and ChatGPT

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