Hi Barbara,
As someone pointed out on this or another AI-related thread, there’s a statement about GenAI on the academic integrity website:
https://www.sfu.ca/students/academicintegrity/UsingGenerativeAI.html. It’s not policy—that will take some time, I’m guessing—but it at least has some useful university-approved
language we can mine.
Speaking of useful, I want to reiterate my English colleague Nicky Didicher’s enthusiastic recommendation of Sidney I. Dorbin’s
Talking about Generative AI: A Guide for Educators, from Canada’s own Broadview Press. I’ve also attached a PDF; it’s licensed under Creative Commons and so free
to distribute for non-commercial purposes. It’s smart, accessible, and brief, with practical advice for instructors and administrators. It helped me think through what I’m going to do with/about GenAI in my Fall undergrad and grad courses.
Best,
Mike
From: Carla Graebner <cgraebne@sfu.ca>
Date: Friday, August 18, 2023 at 9:18 AM
To: Barbara Frisken <frisken@sfu.ca>, Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>, "academic-discussion@sfu.ca" <academic-discussion@sfu.ca>
Subject: Re: ChatGPT
Carleton has a brief reference to AI wrt academic integrity here: https://carleton.ca/FASS-FPA-teaching-regulations/academic-integrity-and-academic-offences/
Carla Graebner
Library
From: Barbara Frisken <frisken@sfu.ca>
Sent: August 18, 2023 7:37 AM
To: Nicky Didicher; academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: ChatGPT
Do we have an AI policy yet?
Higher Education Strategy is tracking policies as other academic institutions develop them:
From: Nicky Didicher <didicher@sfu.ca>
Sent: August 7, 2023 8:01:21 PM
To: Michael T. Schmitt (he, him); academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: ChatGPT
Hi Michael,
I've asked SFU's legal counsel Ernest Soares about this, and was told that SFU is waiting the results of BC’s Privacy Commissioner's investigation before taking steps/making new policy, but that he does not currently
support the use of any AI detection software, including the AI itself, because they are all fallible.
In my personal opinion, it's not ethical to input student work and ask an AI if it wrote it, for exactly the reason you mention--the student's text (which *may* be the student's own ideas/words) becomes part of
the database without the student's permission or any kind of compensation/recognition of the student as the intellectual property rights holder.
... I have a similar problem with Turnitin, since the company monetizes students' intellectual property without any compensation, by selling the use of its database to institutions. Since most of us would likely
object to someone selling our intellectual property without permission, citation, or compensation, I don't see how we can expect our students to put up with such treatment.
Nicky
From: Michael T. Schmitt <mschmitt@sfu.ca>
Sent: August 7, 2023 6:55:14 AM
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: ChatGPT
Hi All,
Ronda mentions that "My TA input several chunks of prose from the student's essay and asked Chat GPT if it had produced them."
I had heard there were privacy issues with that practice -- putting what is ostensibly student's work into Chat GPT, GPTZero, or similar services as they will collect that data and make it part of their database
without the permission of the student.
Can anyone confirm whether there is an issue with that?
Thanks,
Michael
On 2023-08-05 10:31 a.m., Ronda Arab wrote:
Hello all,
I am perhaps an outlier here, but I have found it useful to ban all use of Chat GPT for my courses, particularly for my recent Engl 113W class, and I will continue to do so.
Out 100-level W credit courses are designed and intended for students to learn and practice writing. And Chat GPT, although it does not spit up perfect gems of stylish, sophisticated
prose, is able to produce grammatically correct, essentially correct content, if that content is available elsewhere on the internet. While I have been honing my essay topics for years to make it difficult or impossible for students to use online cheat sites,
it is sometimes difficult to do that perfectly, especially when one teaches, as I often do, authors such as Shakespeare, for whom there is a lot of content found online. Chat GPT is a new obstacle, though.
As far as tutors go, using a tutor or a service who changes your writing (i.e., corrects your grammar, sentence structure, punctuation, etc) rather than simply pointing out errors and
teaching you how to correct them is forbidden by SFU Academic Honestly policy, although there appears to be a provision allowing instructors to override the policy, which I choose not to do. I've copied the provision here:
2.3.5
Unauthorized or undisclosed use of an editor, whether paid or unpaid. An editor is an individual or service, other than the instructor or supervisory committee,
who manipulates, revises, corrects, or alters a student’s written or non-written work. Students must seek direction from the instructor about the type of editor and the extent of editing that is allowed in the course. Students may access authorized academic
support services such as the Student Learning Commons, Centre for English Language Learning, Teaching, and Research, and WriteAway, which do not provide editing.
I had a case of a student cheating using Chat GPT this past semester in my Engl 113W class. This is a "W" class--the students are getting credit for
working on their writing as well as for understanding the literature that we study. My TA input several chunks of prose from the student's essay and asked Chat GPT if it had produced them. Chat GPT said it had. I went through the paper thoroughly and
found many instances for which Chat GPT confessed it had produced the text. (In some cases I had to switch a pronoun to a literary character's name or vice versa--it appears it had to be the exact text.) Now this is not a fool-proof way of discovering whether
or not the text was generated by Chat GPT, as Chat GPT will sometimes tell you it generated content that it did not generate, as I tested it with a few chunks of writing from a published article of my own. So I met with the student in question. The student
said that he had used Chat GPT to "proof read" his essay after he had written the essay himself. That was enough to give the student a 0 on the assignment, as I had explicitly forbidden, in writing, on the assignment, all use of Chat GPT. I also asked the
student to send me his notes and drafts. Perhaps it was no surprise to discover that included in the rough work he sent me was no sign at all of an essay that was written before plugging it into Chat GPT, which is what he claimed he had done.
Sure, Chat GPT didn't write every word of the essay. The essay required the student to write 1000-1300 words and Chat GPT generally can only spit out about 400 words at a time (in my
experience with experimenting with it). So the student had to craft a series of questions to ask Chat GPT and then piece together the bits. Nevertheless, the student did not do the work of putting his own thoughts into writing, which requires cognitive functioning that
I continue to believe is an important skill to learn and develop.
I suspect I will have to incorporate more in-class essays into my "W" courses for units for which there is a fair amount of online content available, as I am simply not ok with students
getting credit for writing they did not do.
Best,
Ronda
Dr. Ronda Arab
Associate Professor of English
Simon Fraser University
pronouns: she/her
Thanks, Nicky. Very useful suggestions in that Google Doc, with all the range of approaches, from prohibition to totally free access without acknowledgment.
Best regards, Gerardo
Hello, Gerardo and others,
Should you wish to see a large range of different AI policy statements for many different disciplines and from many different institutions, here is a google doc curated by Lance Eaton: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RMVwzjc1o0Mi8Blw_-JUTcXv02b2WRH86vw7mi16W3U/edit?pli=1#heading=h.1cykjn2vg2wx
I completely agree that forbidding the use of generative AI is futile! And the main way to go for me is to include it the examples I give for how to write the "Assistance Acknowledged"
paragraph I already ask for with essays and creative projects.
I'm planning to adjust the wording of my syllabi policies depending on the course. For example, for my quantitative analysis of poetry class this Fall, I've drafted the following:
"• you are permitted to use text-generating AI such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, or Quillbot for your written assignments, provided you acknowledge it at the end of the assignment and specify what you used it for (e.g.,
grammar and style corrections, organization, suggestions for an effective title); note: ChatGPT writes terrible metrical poetry and isn’t good at scansion--it can find stressed syllables most of the time, but not divide lines into feet successfully; however,
it’s useful for fixing grammar errors and revising for clarity"
In the instructions for their term paper, I will also note that when ChatGPT writes English essays it usually paraphrases cheater sites such as gradesaver and shmoop, and, when asked to used peer-reviewed sources,
it fabricates evidence.
Nicky
Dear Colleagues:
In September, I’ll be teaching for the first time since ChatGPT became available. So, I’m rather dreading how I will handle this issue, but have no intention of forbidding it (that
would be like stopping gravity). Earlier in the year, we had a very interesting conversation on this topic in this list. At that time, I wrote a brief insert for my syllabus based on ideas from other colleagues’ posts. I would like share that short text, asking
you for any ideas, criticisms, or suggestions you might have. Here’s the text from the section pertaining to mid-term and final essays (this is a grad course):
“You are required to insert an “acknowledgments” section in mid-term and final essays. You can say whether you began with Wikipedia
and engaged with ChatGPT to do your initial research, got idea X from a peer in class, and had your mother or father proofread your paper. Bear in mind that ChatGPT can yield false responses and provide references that do not exist. You must double check anything
you use from this tool, and preferably stick to our required readings to write your essays. They should provide you with more than sufficient material.”
I thankfully acknowledge that I live and work in unceded traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Kwikwetlem Nations.
--
Michael T. Schmitt, PhD
Simon Fraser University
Department of Psychology
8888 University Drive
Burnaby BC, Canada V5A 1S6
The SFU Burnaby campus is located on the unceded traditional territories of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, and Kwikwetlem Nations.
mschmitt@sfu.ca
https://schmittlabca.wordpress.com/
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