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Artificial Intelligence FAQs

The increased availability of AI writing and design tools has raised a number of questions for instructors and students alike. Recognizing that the pace at which these technologies are developing, as well as the infancy of established best practices for AI in postsecondary education, below are the university’s current recommendations in the form of questions and answers.

Instructors who'd like to learn more about AI in higher ed are encouraged to join our community of practice (external link)  (CoP) and/or to explore the faculty-led video presentations that have taken place during our CoP Lunch and Learns.

Does Policy 60: Academic Integrity prohibit student use of AI for assessments?

Currently, Policy 60 (opens in new window)  does not explicitly address AI usage. However, if a student were to submit text, images, designs or any other academic work generated by AI without proper attribution, instructors could consider that plagiarism. Further, instructors could consider AI use to be cheating as described in Policy 60, Appendix A, Section 3.1:

“having ready access to and/or using aids or devices (including wireless communication devices) not expressly allowed by the instructor during an examination, test, quiz, or other evaluation.”

* Please note that Policy 60 is currently under review and we anticipate that specific language on artificial intelligence will be added.

In either case, yes, but be mindful of a few things:

Tool (version). Prompt: “Prompt.” Retrieved from url on date retrieved.

For example,

OpenAI (version 4.0). Prompt: “How should I cite text generated by OpenAI?” Generated at https://beta.openai.com/playground on December 6, 2022.

Not unless the student receives permission from the instructor.

Grammarly, Quillbot, ChatGPT, ParaphraserAI, DeepL Translator, Google Translate, OpenAI Playground

Practical Responses to ChatGPT (external link, opens in new window) , external link from Montclair State University

Artificial Intelligence and Writing (external link, opens in new window) , external link from the University of Central Florida

AI Technology and Academic Integrity (external link, opens in new window) , external link from York University

Eight ways to engage with AI writers in higher education (external link, opens in new window) , external link from Times Higher Education

Educator Considerations for ChatGPT (external link, opens in new window) , external link from OpenAI

Assessment Design (external link, opens in new window) , internal link from the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

Follow the  (google doc) formal process (external link, opens in new window) , external link for academic misconduct concerns. The heart of this process is a non-adversarial conversation between the student and the instructor where the instructor will be able to assess the student’s understanding of their work and educate the student on appropriate vs inappropriate use of AI.

No. There are a number of tools available as well as a significant amount of research dedicated to effectively watermarking AI generated text, but the tools are unreliable and potentially raise privacy concerns.

For more on AI detection, see:

Kirchenbauer, J., Geiping, J., Wen, Y., Katz, J., Miers, I., & Goldstein, T. (2023) A Watermark for Large Language Models. arXiv:2301.10226.

Kirchner, J., Ahmad, L., Aaronson, S., & Leike, J. (2023, January 31). New AI classifier for indicating AI-written text. https://openai.com/blog/new-ai-classifier-for-indicating-ai-written-text

Mitchell, E., Lee, Y., Khazatsky, A., Manning, C., & Finn, C. (2023). DetectGPT: Zero-Shot Machine-Generated Text Detection using Probability Curvature. arXiv:2301.11305.

 

 

AI can be leveraged to improve the quality of your feedback for student assignments. However, it's important to ensure that you're aware of the data privacy policies for any external tools intend to use and that you make sure you're not entering students' sensitive information or personal identfiers.

The AIO provides presentations and workshops on AI Literacy, Leveraging AI in the Classroom, and Mitigating the impact of AI on Student Assessment. If you'd like to request a presentation, please complete  (google form) this form (external link) .

Additionally, a community of practice has been formed to share resources and discuss best practices. If you'd like to join the community of practice, you can do so  (google form) here (external link) .

The AIO also encourages faculty to explore these tools, test them, learn about how they work and what their limitations are, so that they're better equipped to address these matters in the classroom.

As well, the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching is maintaining this currated list of  (google doc) ChatGPT/AI resources (external link) .

The AIO is working in partnership with Seneca College to develop an AI Literacy module for students. The project is funded by e-Campus Ontario and will be released later this year.

As well, the AIO encourages students to reach out to our office if they have questions about what might be appropriate vs inappropriate use of AI.