Cardiff Uni students and staff visited ChatGPT almost 15,000 times during January exams

A Cardiff Uni spokesperson said this is not unexpected

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Cardiff students and academics have visited the ChatGPT website close to 15,000 times in January, compared to zero times reported in December.

Cardiff is part of the eight Russell Group universities that were found to have more than one million visits to the AI website over the December to January exam season.

Universities are continuing to review their assessment policies and an investigation by The Tab suggests universities are ‘playing catch up’ to the use of AI technology in students’ work by using Turnitin, which now has technology that can detect AI-assisted writing.

Cardiff University told The Tab Cardiff it is currently reviewing its existing policy and will update students with new university-wide guidance about the use of ChatGPT ”shortly”.

However, the university described the figures as “not unexpected”.

The university is currently undertaking research in AI and therefore, the Cardiff University identified a large majority of visits were from the research network.

A spokesperson said: “Given the media coverage ChatGPT received since its launch in late 2022 the rise in visits is not unexpected.”

The statistics were found as The Tab made Freedom of Information requests to each Russel Group university; Cardiff University was one of the eight who track the internet browsing activities of users which include students and staff on university WiFi.

Of the Russell Group universities which track their users’ website visits, Warwick university students and users were the highest with over 850,000 visits over December and January. Manchester was the lowest with 554.

A Cardiff University spokesperson said: “It is also worth noting that our School of Computer Science and Informatics, for example, has an interest in the research and teaching of Artificial Intelligence.

“The improper use of AI would be covered by our existing Academic Integrity Policy and we are aware of the potential impact of AI programmes, like ChatGPT, on our assessments and course work. Maintaining academic integrity is our main priority. Our aim is also to educate our students about the proper use of AI and its many benefits. As a result, we are currently reviewing our existing policies and will be issuing new University-wide guidance shortly.”

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