The rapid adoption of ChatGPT and generative AI poses a threat to the specialized field of education—universities and colleges across the country have held emergency meetings to discuss how to deal with the risk of students using AI to cheat .
Some schools and professors worry that the technology will become a tool for students seeking shortcuts in essays or other writing assignments and exams. However, this method of generating content can often bypass detection, making it difficult for schools to judge whether students have truly completed homework independently and what knowledge has been mastered by students . However, most schools and professors say that artificial intelligence will be part of the future life of the younger generation , so it must be gradually incorporated into classroom teaching now.
At present, most of the public K-12 schools in the United States that have explicitly taken measures to prevent students from using ChatGPT are public K-12 schools. The famous ones include New York City Public Schools, Los Angeles Unified School District, and Seattle Public Schools. Both blocked ChatGPT from school networks and devices in the district and prohibited students from using it on the grounds of “negative impact on content security and accuracy.”
Unlike K-12 schools, there are currently very few instances where ChatGPT is banned in US universities. Many top universities, including Ivy League schools, have not explicitly banned the use of ChatGPT, focusing more on letting professors set their own policies. There are currently three different tendencies: the Prohibition faction , represented by Harvard , believes that ChatGPT has potential academic integrity issues, and students are not allowed to use it by default unless the professor allows it; the non-prohibition faction, represented by Princeton , unless The professor expressly prohibits its use, otherwise students are allowed to use ChatGPT freely by default; the unspecified position represented by MIT allows professors and students to express their opinions, and the current use of ChatGPT will not be considered as cheating.
prohibitionist
Internal emails from Harvard's Office of Undergraduate Education explicitly warn students not to consider work that they haven't written, coded, or created as their own, pertaining to Harvard's honor code. This semester, many Harvard professors chose to follow the guidelines of the Office of Undergraduate Education, prohibiting students from using ChatGPT, treating it as equivalent to other forms of academic dishonesty .
However, not all Harvard professors plan to ban ChatGPT entirely. Harvard's policy does not make ChatGPT's prohibition a school rule, but instead allows professors to make their own decisions . For example, Gabriel Kreiman, a professor at the School of Medicine at the school, said that in his course, students are free to use ChatGPT, whether for writing code or completing a final report. His only requirement is that students inform him when they use the app and understand that they are still responsible for their own learning.
Penn likewise emphasizes that "students must not use unauthorized aid in their academic work."
Ethan Mollick, a Wharton professor of entrepreneurship, said he expects students to use ChatGPT when producing any document, whether it's for marketing materials, graphics, blog posts, or a brand new work application.
"I think we have to realize that ChatGPT has become part of our lives, and we have to figure out how to work with it," he said, "We have to realize that we need to change the way we do things and embrace this new technology. We Having adapted to other technological changes, I think we have to adapt to this new one as well."
Stanford University is more explicit in emphasizing that "if in a course, the professor does not explicitly state whether the use of ChatGPT or generative AI tools is allowed, then students should treat it as similar to helping others. Using generative AI tools to write assignments or Exams are not allowed."
The focus of this school is to abide by academic guidelines, and students are prohibited from completely treating the content generated by ChatGPT as their own work submissions, or relying too much on ChatGPT's assistance. However, some professors take a positive attitude and even encourage students to use ChatGPT, and colleges also respect professors' right to make their own decisions.
Other top institutions taking a similar approach include: New York University, Northwestern University, University of Notre Dame, University of North Carolina, Williams College, and others.
Leaning towards non-prohibition
Princeton University stated that the university does not intend to ban the use of ChatGPT, nor will it issue a top-down order, and recommends that professors clearly state the use of ChatGPT in the syllabus; use it to enhance group discussions, and use it as a kind of Tool to compare students' own draft papers with the ChatGPT version.
Cornell leaves each faculty member to decide for themselves what is the best teaching approach for them.
Morten Christiansen, a professor of psychology at the school, said ChatGPT can help students learn on an even playing field. "It can help them as a personal tutor, and students also have the opportunity to evaluate the content generated by ChatGPT."
In fact, the challenge of using this technology is an opportunity to teach and learn in a new way, to hone students' critical analysis skills by prompting students to ask ChatGPT specific questions about course content and critique their responses.
"ChatGPT will make things up and appear to state with great confidence what it says, including adding references that don't actually exist," Christiansen said.
A professor at the University of Chicago mentioned unique ways professors can use to reduce students' use of ChatGPT as cheating.
Ruth Bloch Rubin, professor of political science, said, "I have accepted the fact that some students may try to use ChatGPT. But I want to avoid rewarding students who submit ChatGPT products as their own work. Therefore, I am trying to develop some assignments where AI Get confused or produce very poor results. Specifically, I would create complex essay topics with fictional details of certain premises and ask students to make statements or assessments based on this fictional information.”
Instead of focusing on academic policy related to ChatGPT, computer science professor Borja Sotomayor sees the root cause of academic dishonesty as a broader problem.
"I think we should focus less on developing specific policies against ChatGPT and more on addressing a larger problem: students' over-focus on grades, causing them to care less about learning and more about finding resistance The smallest path to an A.” He says, “To address this, computer science departments have begun experimenting with “normalized grading,” which focuses on giving students substantive feedback rather than percentage marks and allowing them to improve on mistakes. This grading scheme tends to make students more focused on learning and less motivated to cheat. Our experience with this so far has been very positive."
This school of thought is relatively loose, focusing on recognizing that ChatGPT can improve learning and research efficiency, and attribute it to skills that may be required in future work . Therefore, there are generally no strict restrictions on students' use of ChatGPT, but students are also required to follow the academic integrity guidelines and limit the use of ChatGPT to an appropriate range. Professors can independently decide whether to allow students to use ChatGPT according to the course content, and should modify teaching and performance evaluation policies accordingly on the basis of understanding students' usage.
Other top institutions taking a similar approach include: Columbia University, Yale University, University of California (Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Diego), Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, Rice University, University of Michigan, University of Texas, University of Virginia, etc. .
undecided position
At present, there are still a considerable number of American colleges and universities that have not yet made a clear college-level statement on the use of ChatGPT. These schools neither explicitly prohibit the use of ChatGPT, nor explicitly allow professors to decide whether to use it or not. Some schools plan to hold a discussion meeting in the future to listen to the opinions of all parties before making a decision.
Therefore, some professors and students have started discussions and proposed solutions. Some professors believe that ChatGPT can be a useful academic tool that can help students better complete assignments and research projects and help students learn to apply critical thinking skills, while others worry that students are overly dependent on this technology and lack independent thinking and creativity ability, which in turn affects their learning outcomes and future career development.
Likewise, students have mixed views, with some believing that ChatGPT can be used as a time-saving teaching tool, while others worry that the technology might affect their academic integrity and may even lead to issues such as plagiarism. At present, more voices tend to encourage students to use ChatGPT, under the guidance of academic integrity guidelines, limit the scope of its use, and teach students how to use this technology correctly.
Other top institutions taking a similar approach include: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University, Caltech, Dartmouth College, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University, University of Southern California, Emory University, Washington University, Vanderbilt University, Amherst College , etc.
Other international universities have a clearer position
How do universities and professors in other countries handle ChatGPT? Compared with the ambiguity of American universities, many international universities have a clearer position on the use of ChatGPT.
Some well-known universities have banned the use of ChatGPT, arguing that its use would be considered academic misconduct. These universities include:
● UK: Oxford University, Cambridge University, Imperial College, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of Manchester, University of Bristol, University of Edinburgh
● Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong, Chinese University of Hong Kong
● Australia: Australian National University, University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, the other eight
In contrast, universities in Canada ( University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, McGill University, etc.) and Singapore ( National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, etc.) are generally encouraging when dealing with students using ChatGPT.
Summarize
When students use ChatGPT technology, they should fully understand the policies of their own universities and communicate with the professors of the course to make the most suitable choice, so that they can effectively use this technology to improve the efficiency of learning and research, and avoid possible problems. Academic Integrity Issues.