Posted 7:54 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16, 2023
What do I need to know about ChatGPT?
CATL is hearing about the water cooler conversations and concerns about AI. We are glad you are talking about this and want to outline how we are here to help.
The Summary of ChatGPT and Concerns
ChatGPT is a free, online program designed to provide human-like written responses to a wide range of prompts. It was trained using a massive dataset of online information and has the capacity to evolve and learn in response to feedback. ChatGPT is capable of generating text in a range of styles and for a variety of purposes. Among its many capabilities, it can generate answers to essay prompts (both factual and personal), cover letters and resume templates, programming code, short stories or poems in particular styles, research summaries, reference lists, contextual answers based on specific input provided (e.g., a passage of text or case), and dialogue between characters. It can also be used to translate text, generate and correct code, and perform mathematical calculations. Further, it can respond to feedback and make adjustments to the text it generates. Despite these capabilities, the system is not perfect and it often generates answers that are inaccurate, outdated, or not detailed. And sometimes it makes-up information (such as references) to fill gaps.
Not surprisingly, there are many concerns about the use of ChatGPT in educational settings at all levels, particularly when it comes to issues of academic integrity, and there currently exist only a few tools to detect AI-generated text. Further, these tools are relatively new, sometimes easily manipulated, and not well-validated. Given these concerns, some school districts have taken preemptive steps to ban ChatGPT from school networks and devices altogether, and institutions of higher education are now scrambling to develop guidelines and procedures for how to manage these technologies and how to talk to students about them.
What can I do about it now? How do I address this in my classes? Do I need a policy in my syllabus?
There are pros/cons to naming potential sources for cheating (like ChatGPT, or Chegg, Coursehero, etc.) but given how quickly this technology is advancing and (anecdotally) how many students have already heard about it, it would be wise to explicitly mention it in your courses how certain uses would constitute a violation of academic integrity. Please know there are also some tools instructors can use to detect it, if they have suspicions.
If you would like to add a statement to your syllabus or use this language on a first-day slide / conversation starter, please do so and adjust as necessary for your class/needs.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Completing assignments and participating in class activities by yourself (and when appropriate with other students) helps you achieve the learning outcomes for this course. Using AI technologies such as ChatGPT to generate content for course assignments will undermine your learning. Submitting content generated by AI as your own work is an example of academic misconduct and may result in failure of the assignment or the entire course (see policy on “Academic Integrity & Misconduct.”). If you have questions about the use of AI-generated content, please let me know.
What else can do I now?
- Learn more about ChatGPT.
- We encourage you to test it out for yourself, to see some of these capabilities and limits. Become familiar with the kinds of responses ChatGPT can generate and assess potential for use by students in your class. Enter an assignment or exam prompt into the software and review the responses that are generated.
- Check out some advice from Inside Higher Ed: ChatGPT Advice Academics Can Use Now
- Converse with cross-campus colleagues. Attend this CATL workshop on January 30th at 1:10pm.
Additional questions right now? Let us know! We will also be back with another blog post mid-February (after the workshop) about assignment design considerations and ideas for using AI as a learning tool with your students.