Lecturers at UK universities have been urged to review the way their courses are assessed amid concerns that students are already using a powerful new AI tool capable of Produce high quality articles With minimal human input.
ChatGPT, OpenAI’s newest chatbot, was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and others, and has only been publicly available for a few weeks, but has already raised concerns about the potential for hard-to-detect plagiarism and questions about the article’s validity as a future form of evaluation.
It has been described as a “game changer” that will challenge universities and schools. Although GCSE and A-level courses are assessed through traditional end-of-course exams, experts are concerned that pupils using technology for homework will become dependent on answers generated by AI without gaining the knowledge and skills they need.
Working groups have been set up in university departments to assess the challenge of this latest iteration of AI text generation technology, with the expectation that assessment methods will need to be updated in certain courses. Experts admit to feeling both excited and anxious.
In one case, staff at University College London’s Department of Computer Science recently decided to change an assessment. Previously, students were offered a choice between essay-based or skills-based assessment as part of final coursework, but the essay option has been removed.
Meanwhile, Jeff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, acknowledged that schools had to figure out how to take advantage of ChatGPT’s benefits while guarding against negative impacts.
“As with all technology, there are caveats about making sure it’s used responsibly and not as a license to cheat, but none of that can be overcome,” he said. In contrast, New York City schools already have Banning the use of ChatGPT on all devices and networks due to concerns that it would encourage impersonation.
It’s in many ways a game-changer, said Dr. Thomas Lancaster, a computer scientist working at Imperial College London, known for his research into academic integrity, contract fraud and plagiarism. He said: “It is definitely a major turning point in education as universities have to make big changes.
“They have to adapt sooner rather than later to make sure that students are assessed fairly, that they are all competing on a level playing field and that they still have the necessary skills after university.
“There’s been a technology that’s been around for a number of years that will generate text. The big change is that this technology is wrapped in a very nice interface where you can interact with it, almost like talking to another human being. So it makes it available to a lot of people.”
Because ChatGPT is capable of coming up with infinite original combinations of words, Lancaster said it will be difficult to detect and prove plagiarism, although work is already underway to improve detection software. “It’s an incredibly difficult problem because this appeared almost out of nowhere… I would be absolutely shocked if there weren’t students already using GPT for assessments.”
Australian universities They did point to a return to increased use of personality tests to try to protect the integrity of the assessment. Lancaster said, however, that a wholesale return to examinations was not the answer, suggesting instead that oral presentations and vivas be used to enable students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter.
Although ChatGPT represents a huge step forward in the evolution of AI script generation, it is not infallible. said Michael Draper, professor of legal education at Swansea University and an expert on academic integrity and fraud.
Universities could try to ban them, he said, as they prohibit other forms of cheating such as essay mills, which are paid by students to produce original work that they then submit. Draper said, “The other alternative is to allow students to use it. If we are preparing students for the outside world of work and if this type of technology is brought to us in the workplace, then I think we need to embrace it rather than ban it.”
Michael Webb, director of technology and analytics at Jisc, which provides networking and information technology services for higher education, agreed. He said, “The sudden reaction might be to ban these tools in order to prevent students from cheating, but this is neither possible nor recommended. We should simply consider it the next step of spelling or grammar checkers: technology that can make everyone’s life easier.”
“We don’t need to go back to subjective tests: this is a great opportunity for the sector to explore new assessment techniques that measure learners’ critical thinking, problem-solving and reasoning skills rather than essay-writing abilities.”
ChatGPT article
Q to ChatGPT: Write a university-level essay on the causes of World War I. The essay must be written from a UK perspective and use of UK English.
A: World War I, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict that lasted from 1914 to 1918 and resulted in the deaths of millions of people. The causes of war are complex and varied, but they can broadly be categorized into long-term, short-term, and proximate causes.
One of the main long-standing causes of the war was the competition for colonies and resources between the major European powers. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the British Empire and other European countries were expanding their empires and looking for new territories to exploit for resources and markets. This led to tensions between the major powers, as they vie for control of the same territories.
Another long-term reason was the arms race between the major powers. In the years leading up to the war, countries such as Germany, France, and Britain were investing heavily in their military capabilities, including building large armies and navies. This arms race created an atmosphere of distrust and fear among the major powers, each fearing that the others would become too powerful.
Short-term causes of the war include the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in 1914, and the system of alliances that existed between the major European powers. The assassination of the Archduke, carried out by a member of a Bosnian-Serb nationalist group, led Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia, which in turn led to the involvement of other countries as a result of their alliances.
The immediate causes of the war include the mobilization of armies by the major powers in response to the outbreak of war, and the Schlieffen Plan, which was a military strategy developed by Germany to quickly defeat France before turning its attention to Russia.
In conclusion, the causes of World War I were complex and varied. The competition for colonies and resources between the major European powers, the arms race between the major powers, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the system of alliances, the mobilization of armies, and the Schlieffen Plan all contributed to the outbreak of war in 1914.