As an educator, you can shape the role that GenAI plays in your classroom. CDIL has a collection of resources to assist you with this.

However, even if you communicate the appropriate use of GenAI, develop clear assessment guidelines, and explicitly convey these expectations to your students, you may still find yourself staring at student work that you strongly suspect is a product of GenAI, particularly towards the end of the semester when stress levels are high.

While you can use this information to inform your future assessment and course design, you can’t go back in time and create rubrics or design an assessment that would have anticipated this exact situation. What can you do now?

Should I turn to plagiarism detection software for AI? 

As an expert in your discipline and as someone who knows your students well, you might notice irregularities in tone or voice in their work– either within the piece itself or when compared to earlier assignments they’ve submitted for your course.  You also might notice words or phrases that ChatGPT tends to overuse, like “delve, tapestry, and navigating the complexities of…” or “complex and multifaceted,”  that cause you to suspect GenAI use.

We, along with other BC offices, strongly discourage you from turning to one of the plagiarism detection software products that claim to detect AI-produced writing. There are many reasons not to make this choice, including the fact that these software products simply don’t work very well.

If possible, have an in-person conversation with the student. 

The principal professional organizations for scholars of language and literature (The Modern Language Association (MLA)) and Conference on College Composition & Communication (CCCC) have formed a joint task force to address the quickly evolving landscape of GenAI’s impact on writing. 

Their recently published working paper (April 2024) contains guidelines for approaching conversations with students suspected of using GenAI in a way that violates academic integrity policies. Their guidelines suggest: 

• Lead with curiosity. Ask questions about the student’s process, their ideas, and their choices as a writer.
• Remind students of the goals of the assignment and your syllabus policy. 
• Be clear about what the next steps are for them after this conversation. 

This means that you might find yourself in a situation where you strongly suspect GenAI use, you’ve had a conversation according to the above guidelines, and the student still insists that the work is their own. 

If that’s the case, we suggest you tell the student you will take them at their word and respond to their work, trusting that it’s theirs. 

Focus on Student Learning 

You now have some decisions to make about how to move forward with your class. Above all, we recommend you avoid reactivity. Substantially changing the guidelines for an assignment when students are mid-work or have already completed the work is not only unfair but is likely to damage your relationship with your students, potentially leading to resentment and mistrust. 

If you already have a rubric or clear grading guidelines

Take another look at the rubric of guidelines you’ve shared with your students. You might now realize that there are moments when you can provide further clarification on your expectations, grounded in the rubric you’ve already shared with your students. 

You could open communication with your class by sharing that you’ve looked at your rubric and realized that some points are a bit unclear. Then, share further details about what you expect from their work. You also might consider having students analyze AI-produced work as a way to think the skills involved in a given assignment and their own thinking. 

When you assess student work, ensure that your feedback closely aligns with the rubric outcomes. 

Whether the writing was produced with GenAI or not, irregularities in tone, style, and attention to purpose and audience should be highlighted for students as places where their writing isn’t demonstrating competency. 

If you don’t have a rubric 

You have few options if you’ve yet to develop a rubric. You can create a rubric that follows the guidelines you’ve previously shared with your students and then share that rubric with your class. In fact, you could use GenAI to help you translate your assignment requirements into a rubric that you can use with your class. Prof. John FitzGibbon went through this process with his students in his course, Populism and the Rise of Anti-Democracy, ultimately producing this rubric. Prof. FitzGibbon carefully ensured that his rubric required students to engage with specifics of his course that would make it very difficult for students to offload to GenAI. They needed to reference specific case studies, academic concepts, and key themes of the course. 

You could also move forward with your assignment as it’s already developed and take notes on what to change for next time. You’ve likely already had some thoughts about how the situation you’re currently in might necessitate a clearer explanation of what you’re looking for in student work. This is an excellent moment to share with your students what you mean by different aspects of your assignment and which aspects you value most.