Generative AI chatbots are becoming a ubiquitous part of higher education, whether you’re a student trying to brainstorm for your midterm English paper or asking ChatGPT to answer your discussion post for you. One thing is clear: these chatbots are here to stay, and their capabilities will only improve with continued development.
According to an online Study.com survey, 48 percent of students nationwide admitted to using ChatGPT for an at-home test or quiz, 53 percent used it to write an essay, and 22 percent used it to write an outline for a paper.
But not everybody is on board with the growing trend of AI-assisted education. As professors learn to cope with the effects of this technology on teaching and learning, many are still trying to decide whether to fight it or learn to make it part of the curriculum.
“I don’t feel like AI has any positive use in the classroom,” said Chris Rasmussen, a humanities professor at Diablo Valley College whose in-class policy prohibits all AI use.
“I have no interest in reading how a computer transforms a student’s work into something more coherent or legible. I am only interested in the student’s work.”
Rasmussen, who uses the AI- and plagiarism-detection program turnitin.com, said he sees artificial intelligence shaping if not outright creating, his students’ work regularly. But that doesn’t make the technology any more legitimate in the classroom.
“Academic dishonesty is born out of laziness and usually not done very well,” added Rasmussen. “I’m not a luddite, I like technology, [and] I like to use technology in the classroom. But this is one of those things where I think it’s not constructive. It’s actually probably destructive most of the time.”
Rasmussen is not alone in his pushback. Many professors at DVC are trying different methods to avoid the use of AI in their classes, such as requiring that all writing be done in person during class time.
Dr. Jacob Van Vleet, a philosophy professor at DVC, told The Inquirer, “Instead of longer writing assignments [that are] due at the end of the semester that students write at home, I have students do shorter in-class writing assignments.”
He also added that he is seeing AI plagiarism more often in his online classes than in his in-person classes, and this is part of why he is moving away from online teaching.
Meanwhile, others are structuring early semester assignments as bait, dangling them in front of students with prompts that would fit well into AI generators. Because professors are aware of commonly generated responses, they say they can easily catch students cheating with AI.
“I’m definitely seeing [ChatGPT],” Rasmussen said. “You don’t have to be a genius to spot plagiarism, even without Turnitin or other plagiarism detection systems.” However, not all professors agree with this sentiment.
According to Rasmussen, instructors feel this method is effective because if they can flag a student early enough in the term, the student won’t miss out on too many assignments that severely impact their grade, and quickly learn the lesson that academic dishonesty is not tolerated in the class.
“I talked to my colleagues, and they all have different ways of thinking about this and approaching it,” said Rasmussen.
“A lot of them are just doing in-class writing assignments, which is okay, but frankly that’s not much of a solution in my view, because more serious writing takes time and effort. And it’s not just what you can churn out in an hour of class time.”
Patrick Moe, professor and chair of the Communications Department, told The Inquirer, “Unfortunately, I’m routinely catching students using generative AI in place of their original work, and that is disheartening, but not unique.”
Moe, who has a slightly more positive view of the technology, added, “I think it can be a fabulous tool for helping students brainstorm ideas, or figure out different avenues of research if it is used in that way. I just worry too many students are using it as a workaround for doing their own work, rather than as a step in the process.”
In contrast with what Rasmussen said, he added that “it can be rather difficult with AI to be sure of plagiarism or academic dishonesty.”
“From my experience, some of the programs that are AI checkers are actually not that great,” Moe said, citing studies that he read which asserted plagiarism detection programs “are not that great at detecting AI, [and] they tend to be biased against non-native English speakers.”
It’s not just professors who are struggling with the issue. Administrators at DVC are still trying to agree on how to frame and enforce the rules around the use of AI. Currently, it remains up to the individual professors to decide how to address the technology in their classroom.
According to Anne Kingsley, the dean of educational technology and learning resources, the administration is working on “giving agency and clarity for the faculty member to define their policy on AI use, [from] ‘you cannot use AI at all’ to ‘you can use it, but it must be attributed in the following ways.’”
“Regardless of what the faculty use policy would be, [we need] specific language that ties AI to our current student code of conduct on plagiarism and academic integrity,” Kingsley said.
She added, “The code of conduct does discuss both using or representing work that is not your own as your own, and/or using assistive devices to create work that is not your own. That said, we don’t have a direct policy addressing AI, and we are working on that.”
Yvonne Canada-Clark, Dean of Counseling and Student Success programs, is one of four DVC code of conduct officers who speaks with students who are reported as potentially violating the student code of conduct with academic dishonesty. Canada-Clark told The Inquirer that the Academic Senate, a state-wide non-profit organization among community colleges, is working on policy surrounding generative AI use in classrooms.
“We want to make sure all instructors are addressing what is the appropriate use of AI in their particular course, and [the Academic Senate members] are also working on language that instructors can use in their syllabi,” she said.
Addressing the scope of the issue she told The Inquirer that they are receiving around five reports per week for academic dishonesty of all types. She also said the numbers fluctuate and they tend to go up around midterm and finals weeks.
While it remains unclear how generative AI technology will ultimately reshape college classes, some believe it may lead to a massive restructuring of the education system, while others think the impacts may soften with time—somewhat like the disruption caused by Wikipedia when it was introduced in 2001.
“I’ve been teaching for over 20 years,” said Moe. “When I started teaching there was a big panic over Wikipedia, that students weren’t going to do their own research, that they were just going to go to Wikipedia and copy and paste. And while maybe it’s not quite the crisis we’re facing with AI, now no one panics about Wikipedia.
“That’s how I feel about AI too,” he added. “I’m hoping that we will get past a point where people feel like this is the end.”
For now, as students, faculty, and administrators alike scramble to figure out how to coexist with the technology, some say now is the time to act.
“All of this is new, so all these policies are snapshots of things in progress,” said Rasmussen. So far, judging by the school’s policy, “DVC is very lenient, and in many ways, that’s good for students. But I’m not sure this is.”
“This is a very basic concept about academic dishonesty, and college is adult education.”
Rasmussen said he doubts that sticking with the status quo will have good long-term effects on students and their college careers.
“I don’t see myself as a champion for harshness,” he added, but, “sometimes when we let [students] off with just warnings, ‘Oh yeah, you can’t plagiarize,’ I worry that when they go to those four-year schools they’re going to feel like those same rules are in effect, like, ‘Oh, I can get away with it, I got a free one, right? Yeah, one plagiarized paper, and maybe I’ll get caught. And if I get caught, then it’s not that big of a deal. I can just write another one, right?’
“But I think in some ways, we do a disservice to students.”