Several students at Yeshiva College (YC) were caught cheating with ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, in a final exam at home in December.
The students who cheated were in two consecutive semesters of “Books About Books/Movies and Movies,” a course taught by English professor Paula J on Mondays and Wednesdays. Cheating, which is detected through AI detection software used by Geyh, has also led to changes in Yeshiva University’s undergraduate integrity policy.
Students who cheated have also been called to the University Academic Integrity Committee, which is staffed by four faculty members from Stern College for Women (SCW), Symes School of Business (SSSB), Undergraduate Bible Studies (UTS) and YC. According to YU’s Academic Integrity Policy, willful cheating involves penalties with low grades, failing an assignment or course, suspension, mark-ups on personal records and expulsion. Several deans and faculty refused to answer commenter’s inquiries about how many students cheated or what penalties they received, saying it was a personal matter.
The Geyh exam at home, which is equal to 30% of students’ final grades, was offered to students on December 12 and was due two days later. Students were asked to write a paper describing how they would come up with one or two scenes from a movie based on the fairy tale “Prince Amelec,” including how the actors would animate, what kind of shots they would take and what props and sound effects they would use.
On December 18, J told the students via email that she had discovered that the students had cheated on the exam, though she did not tell the students how she had made the discovery.
As Geyh was still unsure at the time whether it had caught every student who submitted written work by ChatGPT, she told the students that a new in-person final would be conducted on December 21 based on the recommendations of the Academic Integrity Committee, Deans, and Vice President Selma Butman. Shortly before officiating the final, J told the students that it had been canceled because she was “confident” that she could identify all of the cheaters.
In response to the cheating, the Yeshiva upgraded its undergraduate academic integrity Policy To indicate that intentional misrepresentation is characterized by the use of “someone else’s/something else’s language”, modernizing it from “someone else’s language”. The updated policy also added the word “creator” to the list of examples of intentional misrepresentation.
“The new language demonstrates that using AI platforms, without acknowledging the source of that content, is a violation of standards of academic integrity,” Karen Bacon, Mordecai de Katz, and Dr. Monique Katz, Undergraduate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, told the commentator.
Multiple professors, based on recommendations from the Commission on Academic Integrity, have warned students against cheating with ChatGPT in finals, with some changing aspects of their final exams to prevent chatbot cheating.
UTS Dean Rabbi Yosef Kalinsky told The Commentator, “The Commission on Academic Integrity provided additional guidance to faculty prior to finals…and advised faculty to take additional measures to adapt to and beyond the realities of AI when assigning work and exams.”
Faculty members have also been given access to an AI scouting program.
ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot released by OpenAI, an AI research company, has been the subject of much controversy since its November 30 release due to its apparent ability to write acceptable university papers. The San Francisco-based company did not respond to The Commentator’s requests for comment.
The cheating prompted many reactions from faculty members, with some expressing shock and others warning that cheating leads to “genes”. [theft]. ”
“I was particularly shocked that religious Jews would engage in this type of behavior,” Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Fred Sugarman told The Commentator.
The first question we will be asked Shamayem [heaven], “SSSB Dean Noam Wasserman to SSSB students in a pre-final email on December 22nd,” is whether we have acted with integrity in all our dealings (Shabbos 31a). In doing so, we create Kiddush Hashem in everything we do.
“On the other side,” Wasserman continued, “R Moshe Feinstein zt “l crushed [ruled] That if you get a job based on fraudulent degrees, so does every dollar you make Geneva. Think about it: every paycheck is filled Aveiros [sins]. Kiddush Hashem becomes Shelol Hashem.”
James Kamara, associate professor of chemistry and chair of the Academic Integrity Committee, told The Commentator that the use of AI generators is not just an ethical issue, and encouraged students who are late with schoolwork to seek help.
This is not just an ethical issue. It is also an issue of pedagogy and the learning process. Students should know that if they are struggling to complete work or meet deadlines, it is best to just ask for help. Whether it’s writing assistance from the Writing Center or a simple due date extension, the teachers and YU community want to help you succeed, learn, and grow the right way.”
According to Wasserman’s email, students who have been caught cheating in the past have been expelled.
Wasserman writes that “bad decisions in recent semesters led to the YU-wide Commission on Academic Integrity fire [emphasis Wasserman’s] Many students from the university, as well as students whose infractions have resulted in suspensions, course failures, and other repercussions that can last a lifetime.”
Along with Kamara, currently serving on the Commission for Academic Integrity are SCW Associate Professor of English Anne Peters, SSSB Professor Mark Speer and Rabbi Nathaniel Werd Blank of UTS.
The commission was created in the fall of 2019. Previously, each undergraduate school had separate committees tasked with dealing with violations of internal academic integrity.
This incident is among the first known cases of students cheating using ChatGPT. Last month, he was a student at Furman University in South Carolina Catch Submit written work by chatbot. Since then, it has been the New York City Department of Education blocked New York City public school students and teachers have access to the program.
YC final exams period seem on December 27th and is scheduled to end on Friday. Some professors, like J., have run their final exams on different dates.
J told the students in her class that she no longer plans to take home exams.
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Photo Caption: Students cheated with an AI generator in Professor J
Image source: Wikimedia Commons