Academic integrity

Google, LinkedIn and X warned that adverts for contract cheating services have ‘proliferated’ despite legislative bans

Australian scholars say improving response times make website ‘an appealing tool’ for cheating, but findings are disputed

Government employees with qualifications from a private college in Rajasthan face scrutiny after allegations of fake degree ploy emerge

University of Glasgow philosophers behind viral ‘ChatGPT is bullshit’ paper claim student AI use is linked to dubious techno optimism of billionaire Silicon Valley moguls

Generative AI is ‘a bit like teenage snogging – everyone’s doing it although no one really knows how’

ChatGPT scores half a grade higher than psychology undergraduates in experiment at University of Reading

‘It’s not a machine for cheating; it’s a machine for producing crap,’ says one professor infuriated by rise of bland scripts

Perhaps AI will be a useful tool. But our obsession with every shiny new object regardless of the harm it might do makes me worry, says Melinda Zook

Making people paranoid about employing familiar and useful words is not the way to encourage responsible AI use, say Lilian Schofield and Xue Zhou 

Universities must gear themselves up to deal with an activity that has ‘evolutionary roots’, academic integrity expert argues

Inflated marks, overworked staff and politically compromised courses are the price of exploiting offshore UK-registered students, says Michael Day

The weaponisation of plagiarism allegations to remove Harvard’s president is no cause for celebration, says research fraudbuster David Sanders

Sherri Ann Charleston described as having repeated instances of multiple sentences matching others’ writings, mirroring complaints that took down university’s first black president

Survey finds evidence of ‘emerging digital divide’ as majority of undergraduates say they use generative AI to help with assessments

Sandra Borch apologises for making ‘big mistake’ while completing her master’s thesis

The departure of Claudine Gay from Harvard was said to be politically motivated but most other leaders have also fallen on their swords when their scholarship is questioned

Government bars recognition of degrees from Benin and Togo, and suggests it could extend this to Uganda, Kenya and Niger

Universities in conservative region decline to add DEI component to their conditions of accreditation

Lack of clear guidelines may put instructors on ‘defensive’ over students’ use of ChatGPT, researchers say

Apparently widespread use of Bluetooth earpieces by medical school entrance candidates in one province has forced a re-sit, say four researchers 

A convincing veneer of academic integrity can help bring about the real thing, finds literature review

Dutch student complained that anti-cheating software did not work due to her skin colour, but university said problems were universal

Daniel Diermeier reflects on traversing the increasingly polarised US political landscape and on disagreeing with staff and students pressing for the university to take sides

Universities should target major platforms that continue to host adverts for contract cheating companies, finds UCL report

While ChatGPT is not officially available in the country, many users bypass restrictions or use similar tools

Those with passionate convictions must be willing to concede their arguments may be flawed or even wrong if useful debate is to happen on campus, says UCL president Michael Spence

If Stanford’s now-departed president had fully faced up to dubious practices in his lab and insisted on corrections, his infractions of research integrity could have been forgiven, says David Sanders

Review of surveys involving more than 4,600 participants suggests rates of academic misconduct rocketed during Covid-19 pandemic

Tools developed to stamp out misconduct have been shown to be biased and inaccurate. Will AI creators themselves be forced to do it better?

Once it becomes common knowledge that a UK master’s degree is worthless, the sector will be in trouble, says an anonymous academic

Assistant economics professor says he replicated results using a different method but journal editors ignored requests for correction

Head of world’s biggest testing firm discusses expansion, artificial intelligence and major changes to the TOEFL and GRE 

Tool developed by edtech giant used by customers 65 million times in three months since launch

Researchers say unsupervised online exams can provide ‘valid assessments of student learning’

Assessment rationales have not kept pace with AI translation and writing support tools, conference hears

Methods used by new tools ‘inadvertently flag’ work written by those who tend to use smaller variety of words and phrases

Based solely on a Turnitin report, Emily was condemned for using ChatGPT to write her essay. Except that she hadn’t, writes Daniel Sokol

Students’ sometimes unexpected use of AI, from generating emails to translating their original work, is encouraging a ‘rethink’ by academics

Scholarly ethics expert Yuehong (Helen) Zhang says the region’s approach to research ethics is changing

‘Lottery’ for mandated replication studies would encourage ‘greater care’ over ‘datasets’, Australian researchers argue

Once-largest US online university, embracing new public partner after Arkansas rejection, agrees its for-profit sector deserves scrutiny

Students may be using homework help service to gain ‘solutions to assessment tasks’, Teqsa worries

Delaware associate professor of marine science faces sacking after top journals retracted her articles, but she claims a faculty report exonerates her

As dozens of student-athletes come under investigation, expert predicts major harms on campus from national embrace of sports betting

Universities have focused on impact on assessments, but internet pioneer tells THE conference changes must extend to teaching and research

Companies that implied students could purchase essays and pass them off as their own work told to remove claims by watchdog

Beijing’s censorship of 2018 gene-edited babies case has prevented ‘crucial’ research ethics dialogue, says scholar

New version of OpenAI’s chatbot can interpret images and tutor students

Linking salary rises to publication record has fuelled research ethics violations, with early career academics struggling the most

Students turning to AI to generate answers undermines business case of contract cheating industry

Edtech giant prepares to offer customers new tool from April as it grapples with challenges posed by ChatGPT

Edtech giants and plucky start-ups are vying to create potentially lucrative tools to combat the use of AI in assessments, but will they cause more problems than they solve?

Ombudsmen need more resources and voluntary investigators need recognition if fabrication is finally to be taken seriously, says sleuth

AI becoming smarter and more accessible should be viewed not only as a cheating risk, say experts

‘Renaissance’ ideals of integrity may mean little to the sharing economy generation, Australian conference hears

AI is close to being able to write students’ essays for them. But that will not help them understand why they think what they think, says Jane Rosenzweig

Australian study suggests simply reinstating on-campus tests may not have much effect

The police-catch-punish approach neglects to address plagiarists’ misunderstanding of what higher education is all about, says Sioux McKenna

Members hope closer cooperation will help disrupt innovative multinational fraudsters that target and blackmail vulnerable students

Researcher encourages universities to talk openly about Fomo and the risk it poses to young students