Every classroom deals with plagiarism. Does AI exacerbate that problem, or not? In Week 3 of #8weeksofsummer blog challenge, the question is: How do you plan to address the concern of plagiarism that surrounds ChatGPT and similar tools?

In Study.com, the researchers found that 89% of the students surveyed had use ChatGPT to help with homework (Westfall, 2023). How different is this from using Google to get the answer?

I have to be honest, the first question is not how to deal with plagiarism in AI but how to deal with it. Period. The librarians at John Hopkins Sheridan Library make some basic suggestions (2023). Teachers should review plagiarism rules with students so there is no excuse for misunderstanding. Next, we need to recognize that some students are taking the easy way out. Therefore, we need to complicate the assignment by asking for more analysis and rewriting items for each class. Third, to address stress and a ethics erosion, the librarians suggest scaffolding by breaking down the big assignments into smaller parts. You don’t have to grade the smaller pieces, but wait until the entire product is done. You can also let students do different pieces in different mediums which will both reduce plagiarism and provide more engagement in the project.

You need to acknowledge that plagiarism is happening. Check the students’ work. There are a variety of plagiarism program checkers like Turnitin. If you are really worried that the document is from ChatGPT, a college student on winter break wrote a program to help you discover if the document was written by ChatGPT. Try GPTZero to discover if work is by ChatGPT, a human, or a combination.

Teach the right thing to do. Then, verify it’s happening.

References:

John Hopkins Sheridan Library. (February 2023). Helping prevent plagiarism in your classroom. https://guides.library.jhu.edu/avoidingplagiarism

Scoffield, Shelby. (March 16, 2022). An innovative way to deal with plagiarism. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/innovative-way-deal-plagiarism/

Westfall, Chris. (Jan. 28, 2023). Educators battle plagiarism as 89% of students admit to using OpenAI’s ChatGPT for homework. Forbes (online). https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2023/01/28/educators-battle-plagiarism-as-89-of-students-admit-to-using-open-ais-chatgpt-for-homework/