Washington State Community College monitoring any A.I. use by students

MARIETTA, Ohio (WTAP) - Washington State Community College officials say they’ve been on the lookout on ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence — or A.I. — services for some time now.

Artificial intelligence is the development of computer systems to perform tasks normally done through human intelligence. This includes speech, decision-making and for this case: homework and classwork.

The school’s director of educational technology and instruction design, Kristin English said the teachers are being instructed to find any instances of A.I. use by students. Including using technology to detect any use.

“So, students will submit all of their written work into that system and then it does an A.I. check that comes back with a likelihood percentage rate that A.I. has been used for that assignment. So, we’re using technology to check students’ work to see if they’re using that,” English said. “But also, having conversations with them about ethics of education and good academic integrity policies. And how we want to see their learning and their critical thinking. And not a computer doing it for them.”

English said the school has already seen instances of students using it.

“We’ve seen some minimal cases since it came out and got popular in mid-Spring. So, towards the end of the Spring semester, we did have some cases pop up. And what we did there is having the students come in and having that conversation with them,” English said. “Because it’s a new technology and making sure that they understand why that was not good practice and how that is academic dishonesty just like any other form of cheating would be.”

English said they see A.I. as a tool to be used in classes for communication, but they said they want students to follow academic integrity procedures.

English said the college is doing extensive training with faculty about these services. Including multiple one to two-hour sessions.

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