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Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

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Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen hundred of college students successfully cheat with mobile phones in class.

As a TA, I've seen graduate students succeed with answers blatantly copied from the internet (i.e. screenshots of the answer, rote copied answers, etc), and then I was asked to make a calculation to make sure the points reduction would not impact their final grade. This was before generative AI became so commonplace, and I got the impression this is super common place. It was a really disillusioning moment for me.

Seeing my fellow grad students cheat, then brag in the public student lounge to multiple people about having the highest score on the exam by “oh I didn’t even understand that question I just copied the answer key and I still got the highest score”, broke something in me.

Our institutions are failing us, and I have never been more disillusioned.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember taking a math class in college and the professor had a very unique way of dealing with cheating. He let us use our books, notes, and "any calculator capability" from our TI-84's. His rationale is that students will try to use these tricks anyways so just let them and then update the test to be "immune" from these advantages. Before every test he mentioned that we could use all those tools but always said "…

I’ve done this but then you end up with students who are not used to “thinking”. They do bad on the test. Now I’m known as a hard teacher. Now people avoid my classes. Administration hounds me for having s low passing rate. I need a job. I now give easy tests. The real issue as I see it is that no one wants to face the reality that far too many incapable, incurious people are going to college. So I pretend to give re…

> I need a job. I now give easy tests.

That seems more of an indictment of your profession than anything to do with the students.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#683
post #448
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on the questions. There are also open book exams. A viva is a type of exam so I don’t see they are incompatible with assessing research

Not every class is STEM. Are you writing a 4000 word research paper sitting in class?

We had in class essays in my history class in highschool. “Write everything you know about the triple entente” or something like that was often the prompt. You were merely expected to pay attention in class to pass not bring in outside research.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#684
post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not every class is STEM. Are you writing a 4000 word research paper sitting in class?

We had in class essays in my history class in highschool. “Write everything you know about the triple entente” or something like that was often the prompt. You were merely expected to pay attention in class to pass not bring in outside research.

Are you saying all you needed was attention? :)

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#685
post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still do written essay evaluations. You could just require proctored exams whether or not you use software like Examsoft. If it's a topic that benefits from writing from a store of material, you can permit students to bring either unlimited supplemental printed material or a limited body of printed material into the exam room. For longer essays, you can just build in an oral examination component. This face t…

That’s 8 days of TA time. You’re going to get high variance and most likely having to boil it down to the equivalent of a multiple choice oral exam. Hiring a n TA to delegate grading that’s hard to verify seems like will cost more than you think.

So get more TAs. They cost less than Class B CDL drivers and will drag themselves over broken glass to take these jobs. And 65 hours of work per semester for oral examinations seems entirely reasonable. A week and a half for an FTE spent observing, with another half week to full week for grading seems completely reasonable for capstone semester work.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#686

The part that annoys me is that students apparently have no right to be told why the AI flagged their work. For any process where an computer is allowed to judge people, where should be a rule in place that demands that the algorithm be able explains EXACTLY why it flagged this person. Now this would effectively kill off the current AI powered solution, because they have no way of explaining, or even understanding, w…

Thats how these tools mostly already work at least on the instructor side. They flag the problem text and will say where it came from. Its up to the teacher to do this due diligence and see if its a quote that merely got flagged or actual plagiarism.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#687
post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For online courses it is no longer the case that exams are proctored in person. Most higher education in the United States is done at community colleges and regional state universities.

Once you have an online class with no proctored exams (or even biometric ID check) you don't know who took the class anyway. Frankly, that makes any "online degree" certification basically worthless without a proctored exit exam. That doesn't mean the education or study aren't valuable, they are to whoever is actually doing it. I didn't realize that so many community colleges and state universities were basically onl…

Maybe the solution is to get rid of degrees and certifications, and just let the students who actually want to learn attend.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#688

I don't understand most of the comments here. I couldn't cheat in high school because we couldn't use our phones during class. Not for worksheets nor quizzes and especially not exams whether they be multiple choice, oral, or essays. Yet the top threads here act like we need a whole refactor of schooling, many people suggesting we rely on viva voce exams and proctored exams. What exactly do you think that's solving ov…

People would also type in their notes into their graphing calculator or even slip something up their sleeve. Phones aren't the only way to cheat, they are arguably harder than other old fashioned ways to use secretly.

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#689
post #22

My kids’ school added a new weapons scanner as kids walk in the door. It’s powered by “AI.” They trust the AI quite a bit. However, the AI identifies the school issued Lenovo laptops as weapons. So every kid was flagged. Rather than stopping using such a stupid tool, they just have the kids remove their laptops before going through the scanner. I expect not smart enough people are buying “AI” products and trusting th…

I could see a student hollowing out the laptop and hiding a weapon inside to sneak it in if thats the case

[deleted]

Re: Do AI detectors work? Students face false cheating accusations

#690
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France my essays were written in class, no phones, no book, just your brain, a sheet a paper and a pen. That's still 100% doable today

It even came with handwriting built in as authentication mechanism! AI detectors hate this secret! On a more serious note - US removed cursive from their curriculum almost two decades ago - something i cant wrap my head around as cursive is something the rest of the world(?) uses starting in middle school and onwards through the whole adult life.

My kids still have cursive in the curriculum (charter school but I believe the public schools in my district teach it too). Once my oldest hit 4th grade, all assignments had to be completed in cursive.
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