Universities’ focus on assessment misconduct in the wake of the emergence of large language models “panicked” students, and institutions would have been better being “honest” that they were still figuring out the ramifications of new technologies, according to experts.
Mark Simpson, deputy vice-chancellor of Teesside University, told Times Higher Education’s Digital Universities UK event that the sector “got it wrong” when ChatGPT was launched 18 months ago.
“Our initial reaction to AI was to look at ways of trying to detect it, and we quickly moved to write it into academic misconduct regulations. So our conversation with students was, ‘Use AI and we will punish you.’ That put the whole student body into panic,” he told the event, held at the University of Exeter.
This focus on assessment has deflected from conversations that need to be had about how artificial intelligence can be used in the learning process, Professor Simpson said, which students would see as “much less of a threat”.
