Guido Conaldi and Francesco Mambrini
What’s happening with AI in Higher Education?
It’s an exciting time to be in Higher Education (HE). The landscape is transforming, and at the centre of it all, there’s a tech phenomenon that’s hard to ignore: AI-powered chatbots, like ChatGPT. Research in this area is exploding, spanning multiple facets of AI in HE (e.g., Perkins 2023; Kasneci et al. 2023; Fauzi et al. 2023; Mollick and Mollick 2022; Mollick and Mollick 2023). While we sense an overall positive sentiment towards this new tech, concerns around its impact on academic integrity are also surfacing.
So, what’s the problem?
As researchers, these concerns resonate with us. We’ve had similar conversations with lecturers and know that they share these worries. The anxiety isn’t unfounded – the potential for students to use tools like ChatGPT in ways that don’t promote actual learning is real. That’s why we believe the key remains a shift towards more authentic assessment paired with the integration of AI-powered tools in our curricula. Authentic assessments, by design, encourage original thinking and the application of knowledge in real-world contexts, making it less likely for students to use AI-tools inappropriately – especially when their appropriate uses become part of the learning process.
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