Bournemouth University declares using ChatGPT to help with assignments an academic offence

With rising interest in free-to-use artificial intelligence software such as OpenAI’s Dall-E and ChatGPT, Bournemouth University has reviewed its policy on AI usage in academic assessments.

BU has released an official statement warning students against using AI language models as a means of completing their assignments. If all, or part of an essay is detected as having been developed by AI, it would constitute an academic offence under BU’s Policy and Procedure for Academic Offences (6H plagiarism).

Failure to comply by these rules may lead to serious consequences such as being required to repeat a whole unit, a zero per cent or capped mark, or even expulsion from the university.

It is unclear whether Bournemouth University and other academic institutions will alter assessments to cater to new AI technologies, however essay submission site, Turnitin, is developing its’ own tool to detect AI-assisted writing to mitigate misconduct.

ChatGPT is a versatile online AI tool that is able to write essay-standard text in seconds, with extremely limited input from a human user. Its’ conversational style, that mimics human dialogue has led to concern among higher education institutions about how to mitigate its impact on fairness in student assessments.

If you need help with essay writing, BU encourages students to make use of the support available through lecturers and regular study skills workshops.

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