This page is a work in progress and provides high-level information, guidance, and resources to support our understanding and usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT.

Our initial, and developing, high-level guidance is as follows:
It is too soon to embrace fully AI, and tools like ChatGPT 3, in Higher Education. Yet, due to the pace of change, and increasing ubiquity of AI tools in the workplace, and blurred lines between human and AI generated content, it is (probably) too futile to ban these tools. As educators, we should not panic, but we need to carefully review, evaluate and experiment with these tools – working in partnership with students, employers and other key stakeholders.

Practically:

  • As we note below, our focus should be on assessment design.
  • We need to double down on academic integrity support for students.
  • We need to be *cautious* in our exploration of these tools in the context of teaching and assessment, being mindful of any data security implications, and ethical issues. For instance, while companies are now developing and releasing AI watermarks and AI "detection" tools, we need to review their efficacy and be ethical in our use of the tools.
  • We need to define clarity over when and when not AI can be used in student work (and by staff to generate content or for generating assessments), eg. publishers are banning ChatGPT as a cited author, but some (major ones) are allowing it as a tool for drafting, as long as the (human) author generates the knowledge, and checks that statements are factually correct.
  • To that end, we should consider our approach to AI literacy, and supporting staff and students to gain a deeper understanding of the pros and cons of AI in Higher Education.

ChatGPT: A very brief introduction

ChatGPT came to global attention in December 2022, having being launched in November by OpenAI - a research laboratory based in San Francisco (USA). OpenAI has a general mission to build safe Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), by which it means autonomous systems which 'outperform humans at most economically valuable work— [and] benefits all of humanity.'

The news is ablaze with stories ranging from ChatGPT heralding an existential threat to academic integrity, to the future world of work (where white-collar workers will be replaced by our AI overlords), that or the rise of The Terminator. It has even provided relationship advice, and in one example, was used with another tool to create a virtual AI wife.

ChatGPT in Higher Education

ChatGPT is already good enough for undergraduate students to use in their writing process by providing suggestions for sentences, paragraphs, essay plans, feedback on drafts and even producing entire scripts; it can also generate basic code. Indeed, it can be used in many ways in Higher Education - and not just by students; teachers, too, can use it to generate lesson plans, marking criteria - and even mark work! It has, however, a number of known limitations, and its use by students and teachers raises ethical questions, and poses challenges to academic integrity and the way we currently assess.

Below we provide some initial - and developing - examples and guidance for staff to consider in using ChatGPT in their teaching and assessment.

There are countless more examples appearing on the internet every day. We will continue to keep abridge of these, but perhaps the most important and powerful response to this topic is you, and your students. The lessons you learn in your teaching and assessment practices, and the different ways students come to use these tools. To that end please do contact us if you have any need for further support, or have a great example (of a success or failure), that you are willing to share.

Get in touch

In time, we will share examples of how teaching teams at Bath are using ChatGPT and AI, their findings and recommendations to colleagues. If you have an example that you would either like support with to implement, fund, evaluate and/or share, please do let us know and a member of the team will contact you!

Updated on: 16/03/2023