Addressing Academic Integrity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Instant Reactions of HEIs on AI Detection Tools

Abstract

The increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly AI-generated content in higher education, poses significant challenges to academic integrity. This abstract explores the insights higher educational institutions (HEIs) provided in tackling this issue in the wake of the Turnitin plagiarism detection tool introducing AI detection in April 2023. The main objective of this study was to understand how HCIs consider the impact of AI on academic integrity. The author surveyed how HEIs reacted to the rise of AI use and the Turnitin plagiarism detection software's recent inclusion of AI detection. The author executed two search queries on Google search engine. The searches were conducted on 22nd May 2023. All results were included in the sampling frame. Results, which had no information on university-wide policy-level instructions or decisions, were excluded. ChatGPT version 4.0 (2023 May 12 version) was used to efficiently summarize content from Web sites. Statements from 31 HEIs were analyzed. HEIs who had reported their concerns on official Websites were mainly from USA, Australia, and Turkey. They are dealing with the growing impact of generative AI tools like ChatGPT on education, emphasizing the necessity for academic integrity measures. All institutions think it is too early to decide on student academic misconduct based on AI detection data. Some institutions have emphasized the right to check work for AI usage retrospectively. However, they stress the importance of citing AI tools in academic work to maintain integrity and avoid misconduct allegations. Despite AI's transformative potential in education, universities advocate for a comprehensive approach to detect academic dishonesty and encourage responsible AI use, considering ethical, legal, and policy aspects. While helpful, Turnitin's AI detection tool should not be the only basis for determining academic misconduct.