Student case studies around AI

Quinn* was required to write a Literature Review worth 35% of his final grade. Quinn is a masters level student who studied his undergraduate degree outside of Australia. His first language is not English. Although he has developed a good command of English, he finds certain academic texts challenging to understand. To assist with his comprehension, he uses a translation tool to read these documents.

He drafted his Literature Review in his native language and used the same translation tool to convert these ideas to English. The translation tool had generative artificial intelligence (AI) inbuilt to the software.

To smooth his writing further, Quinn ran the translated Literature Review through an online paraphrasing tool.

When Quinn was notified that his Literature Review had been flagged as potentially being crafted using AI, he chose not to attend the meeting that was set up for a discussion regarding the potential breach. He sent in a written response in which he argued that the work was entirely his own as it was produced from his ideas. He also pointed out that he referenced all the materials he had used in the Literature Review.

Upon review of this case by the Academic Integrity Officer, Quinn was found to have provided a reference list, but not used in-text referencing to show which sources were relevant for each idea. Additionally, the use of the generative AI changed Quinn’s words and ideas, which meant that these were no longer his original thoughts.

This was Quinn’s first breach of the Academic Integrity Policy. The AIO found that Quinn had breached the policy (contract cheating) with no genuine misunderstanding and received a zero for the assignment. His details were added to the Academic Integrity Register.

*Name changed

Georgia* is a first-year student who is not confident in her writing. She chose a media course because she didn’t think it would include a lot of long essays. In her course she needed to write a television, film, radio or podcast script. Students were told not to use Artificial Intelligence because they were being assessed on their own original ideas, and their ability to communicate these ideas in a writing style suitable for the media format. When writing the script, she had trouble deciding what to write about but she didn’t want to ask anyone for help. Georgia decided to get ideas from ChatGPT. She chose a few elements and asked Chat GPT to generate a script. Georgia made a few changes and then submitted the script as her own work. She did not cite the use of Chat GPT.

When reading the script, Georgia’s course coordinator noticed that the script didn’t really match the assignment instructions. The language and grammar used also seemed very different to Georgia’s other work. 

When reading the script, Georgia’s course coordinator noticed that the script didn’t really match the assignment instructions. The language and grammar used also seemed very different to Georgia’s other work. 

Georgia had already breached the Academic Integrity Policy once before. She was found by the AIOs to have breached the Academic Integrity Policy  and received a 40% reduction in her grade. This had a significant impact on her overall grade in the course.

Georgia was advised to make use of University supports such as Studiosity and the Writing Centre to improve her writing skills

*Name changed.

Frank* is an international student studying a course in Academic English and for his final essay worth 35%, Frank submitted an essay on the topic of Academic Integrity. English is not his first language. The student appears to be a first-year student.

His report came in with a Turnitin score of 17% and an AI score of 36%. In this course, if the score is between 21- 40% the tutor will give the student an opportunity to resubmit. In his resubmission the student appears to have completely misunderstood the process or issue and just deleted the offending paragraphs in the resubmission. Or attempting to just hide their use of AI.

Further suspicion is raised in that it is not his own work, are the fabricated references and the inconsistencies and fluctuating grammar styles that according to the CC go from excellent to appalling.

The student was sent a notification letter that indicated the suspected use of AI. The student opted to send a written response and did not attend the meeting. Written response was extensive, and student does mention the use of translation software. This may have caused the AI to be detected. Student does not mention the use of ChatGPT or any other AI software.

In the written response the student argues that they had a medical condition which made them forgetful in checking the references. Student also gave some examples of references to prove he did his research.

The AIO was not convinced that the student had only used Grammarly as Grammarly would not fabricate references. Student is committing representation by having fabricated references.  The amount of AI is roughly 35%. As it was a first breach the student was given a penalty of a 15% reduction in their mark.

*Name changed.

Shirley* has to complete a practical report for her engineering course. The assignment guidelines give information about what sections to include and require students to include at least 5 references to relevant source material in Harvard style referencing.

Shirley writes up the steps she undertook in her practical, as well as a discussion of her results. She uses the headings given by her tutor.  One of the headings is ‘Literature Review’. Shirley knows she needs to gather some sources which are relevant to her practical and the methods she used. She uses artificial intelligence to generate some relevant references and insert them into her report, including a reference list. She figures that these references must support what she has to say in the report.

When Shirley’s tutor marks her report, they notice that the references seem unusual and are not relevant to Shirley’s practical report. Although Shirley has provided a reference list, some of the reference don’t seem to be real.

Shirley is invited to an academic integrity meeting to discuss the possible use of artificial intelligence to complete her report. She chooses not to attend but sends a written response explaining that the report is all her own work.

However, the Academic Integrity Officer finds that three out of the five references provided are not real, and the other two are irrelevant to the topic. They conclude that Shirley has not consulted any of these sources herself, and that it is likely they were generated by AI. Because Shirley has used references that are not real, and that she has not read herself, this is misrepresentation and a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy.

As a result of this breach, Shirley’s assessment mark was reduced by 50%. The AIO explains that is an assessment includes a research component, students are being assessed on their ability to find and explain relevant research. Getting AI to do this misrepresents the student’s skills.
 

*Name changed.