Guidance and recommendations for teachers regarding generative AI.
The knowledge and insights regarding how Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) can be used and impact us are changing every day. However, what we do know is that this is something we must address as educators, both in terms of assessment and teaching, and also considering that the external environment and the industries and professions we educate for are rapidly influenced by these advancements.
What applies to the use of GAI at Lnu?
It is allowed to use Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in teaching at Lnu, just like at most other universities, both nationally and internationally. However, the course coordinator/examiner decides what tools are allowed in the specific course. As a teacher, if you are using GAI in teaching with students, consider the following:
- Ensure that each student has equal access to the GAI tools you recommend.
- Inform students about the risks of sharing personal information or copyrighted material with the tools.
- Inform students about the rules for using GAI tools in your course.
- Do not share students’ work with GAI tools.
Review your exams
If you haven’t already, it’s high time to explore your examination tasks with GAI, such as ChatGPT, BING Chat, Google Bard, or Perplexity. Both the form and content may need to be updated based on current conditions. It is also crucial to discuss with the students and inform them about what is considered permissible use in your course.Kan vi detektera AI-genererad text?
Trying to detect AI-generated text is not a viable approach! Tests with such tools show that it is not possible to reliably detect AI-generated text. Moreover, GAI can be used as assistance in a variety of ways beyond just generating text. A more long-term solution is to evolve your examinations.
Avoid take-home exams
With the advent of GAI, there are no foolproof ways to assess course objectives, such as the ability to explain, summarize, and describe, through a take-home exam. These objectives may need to be reformulated or integrated into other objectives to facilitate a more complex examination. In case of assignments completed at home, requirements for justifying the choice of references and sources should be included. The focus should also shift towards more complex skills, emphasizing independent and critical analytical abilities. Depending on where students are in their progression, examination practices should be adjusted to avoid introducing excessive complexity in courses for foundational students.
Move to more oral exams
Oral examinations have good potential to be legally secure and can be part of a stepwise assessment or a conclusion to reflective and visible processes. Students can be asked to prepare material or present information with a representation that can be saved as a basis for the examination. Presentations and summaries can be conducted in the room through various forms of interaction or in a secure writing space like Inspera, where it is more likely that the student owns their foundational knowledge. Oral examinations can be employed for almost all course objectives, and they can be conducted digitally. You can record them in Zoom, or capture a whiteboard with calculations and concept maps through photography. These recordings can then be reviewed later, either with students or colleagues.
What do we do if we suspect unauthorized use?
If, despite everything, there are concerns about the authenticity of a submitted exam or ongoing guidance where the origin of the task is in question, it is your duty to ensure the authenticity of the examination. This allows you, as the examiner, in, for example, a conversation with the student, to ensure that they ”own their knowledge.” This can be done through a supplementary oral assignment and can be equated with testing authorship in tools like Ouriginal.
- Review the examination formats in your course plans. Avoid, to the greatest extent possible, take-home exams and other written assignments such as essays, papers, reports, etc. If using this form of examination, the task needs to be clearly contextualized.
- Establish clear assessment criteria. Ensure legal security by developing transparent assessment criteria for all types of evaluations. • Conduct examinations in person/Zoom when possible. Develop secure seminars that can be integrated into examinations while also serving as learning opportunities. We recommend the book Seminariet i högre utbildning (Jons, L. 2015).
- Design for visible knowledge processes: Focus on visible knowledge processes to better understand students’ comprehension. Emphasize teaching, conduct preparatory exercises that don’t need to be assessed, and include multiple smaller or incremental assessments.
- Incorporate more modalities and allow students to represent their knowledge in ways other than continuous text. Many forms of knowledge cannot be reliably assessed through text alone. Others are too easy for today’s technology to handle.
- Use digital in-class exams that are currently available at Lnu. However, be mindful that large final exams can be vulnerable. In interview studies with students, in-person exams are considered to be the most valuable to cheat on.
- If GAI tools are not allowed for students, you must clearly specify what unauthorized use entails in study guides and assessment criteria.
Here are some points that may be important to discuss with students to prevent unauthorized use and cheating:
- Discuss the importance of learning and be clear about the purpose of exercises and how they contribute to the student’s personal and professional development. Motivate the purpose of the examination and highlight what students stand to lose in terms of knowledge and understanding by not engaging in the material.
- Students may not always be aware of what is allowed or not. Provide clear guidelines on permissible aids, including information on proper citation and source management, how to avoid plagiarism, and how to use sources responsibly. Also, discuss the possibilities of collaboration and how to work with other students in a responsible and honest manner. Clearly explain what is allowed and what is not when collaborating with others.
- Address how to avoid stress and overload that may lead to cheating. Offer tips on time management and organization, stress management, and how to seek help when needed. Here, there are ways in which GAI can be very helpful.
- Clarify what constitutes cheating and the potential consequences. This may include information about the university’s policy on cheating, possible disciplinary actions, and how cheating can impact a student’s academic and professional career. By discussing the ways in which GAI can be used and what is considered unacceptable, students also become aware that there is an understanding within the university about AI and how it can be utilized and misused.
Review your teaching
There are several questions you may need to ask yourself in relation to GAI. How well do your learning objectives hold up against changing conditions? Is your teaching and course design still relevant and up-to-date? How does the job market we are preparing for look today compared to yesterday?
We constantly need to adapt to the external environment, and the fact that these tools have become widely available today necessitates an update of our roles as course coordinators and examiners. We need to revise how we design our courses to support student learning and how we assess their knowledge. In this work, we all must consistently ask the questions: What is essential knowledge in my course? How does it manifest itself? How do students demonstrate that they possess that knowledge, and therefore, how do we structure the course?
One area that could be particularly affected by GAI is students’ independent work. Larger changes may be needed here to teach and assess scientific thinking (independent work) and report writing. Course objectives and learning outcomes need scrutiny, and we must consider how these scientific competencies should be assessed and whether AI can assist in developing the skills students are meant to cultivate.
Explore, learn and stay up to date!
At the bottom of this article, there are several links to tools that you should start exploring if you haven’t already. In your exploration, consider both how they can impact your work in relation to students and how they can simplify, streamline, and enhance your own work.
We can probably be quite certain that this is the beginning of a development that will affect us for a long time. We need channels and forums where we can find updated information and discuss these issues. Use your teaching team to collectively address the questions that need immediate attention. It is also necessary to initiate discussions and create contexts where we can explore the long-term consequences of GAI for higher education.
In the longer perspective, it is important to ask questions about how this affects higher education in a broader context. The use of AI in society and the workforce has only just begun, and our mission to educate now and in the future needs to constantly adapt to the changes taking place. Continuously working on the disciplinary knowledge of the course, assessment criteria, and examinations prepares us to face rapid changes.
Other resources
Below you will find links to other resources related to GAI. These are partly direct links to various GAI tools that you should explore, and partly links to information that may be good to take part in to learn more and stay updated.
Most other educational institutions have guidelines on what and how one should and can relate to GAI. Below you will find some examples.
Lund
A compilation of common questions about GAI tools. – Q&A GAI – LU
On the following page, there are several videos with different discussions about GAI. Among other things, there are discussions about certain ethical issues, the type of source ChatGPT can be considered, and how one should refer to it if necessary.
Örebro
Örebro University has a helpful list with 10 tips for addressing AI development, along with a summary of key concepts. – Centrala begrepp – OUR
Borås
In this video found under the heading AI and Teacher’s Perspective, Gustaf JuellSkielse demonstrates how ChatGPT can be used to write a student essay.
Göteborg
Jonas Linderoth, Gothenburg University, tests an examination task in a tool called Jenni. – Jenni.ai
Quick guide to ChatGPT and other generative AI
Important considerations
To use many Generative AI services, such as ChatGPT, you need to create an account yourself since you won’t have access through the university. For ChatGPT, you’ll need an account with OpenAI. Often, what is entered into these services may be stored, and you may have no option to have it deleted. Therefore, avoid entering sensitive information about yourself or others. Currently, version ChatGPT 3.5 is free, but as this is a commercial tool, there are no guarantees that ChatGPT will continue to be freely accessible in the future.
Some tips on how to use GAI
GAI can be used in several ways in your studies, and in this table, you can find several examples. There are many other GAI tools available today beyond ChatGPT that can provide better insight into the source of information in the responses. One such tool is, for instance, Perplexity. Elicit can assist you in finding and processing information in an article, and Grammarly provides linguistic feedback on your text. Please note that the boundaries between permissible and impermissible use are not always easy to discern. Be mindful if you notice that you are letting AI do the work so that your learning is not compromised.
Om GAI används för studier så observera att gränserna för tillåten och otillåten användning inte alltid är lätta att dra. Var observant på om du märker att du låter AI:n göra jobbet så att ditt lärande inte blir lidande.
| Kategori | Beskrivning | Exempel | |
| Sounding board | AI generates alternative ways to express an idea. | Write questions in GAI and use the ”Regenerate response” function to view and compare alternative answers. | |
| Opponent | AI acts as an opponent to develop an argument. | Use GAI to prepare for discussions. Ask for counterarguments or request different perspectives on a question. | |
| Guide at the side | AI functions as a guide. | Ask GAI for advice on how to learn a specific concept. GAI can for instance be used to support language acquisition. | |
| Personal coach | AI coaches and provides immediate feedback on progress. | Ask GAI for personalized feedback based on information you provide (e.g., test results). | |
| Troubleshooter | AI assists during a learning process. | Ask GAI for correction assistance for language accuracy, programming code, etc. | |
| Explorer | AI provides tools to explore and pose questions to text and data. | Provide basic information, such as a text, and write various questions in GAI to learn more about the content. | |
| Study companion | AI helps to reflect on learning materials. | Explain your current level of understanding of GAI and inquire about ways to assist in studying specific material. GAI can also be used, for example, to create study schedules with readings, lectures, and other study activities or help prepare for a job interview. | |
| Evaluator | AI describes the level of knowledge and assesses it. | By interacting with GAI in a tutoriallike dialogue, you can ask GAI to produce a summary of your current level of knowledge. | |
Some tips for writing better prompts:
By following these tips, you can improve your results when using GAI and get better answers to your questions.
Avoid slang and abbreviations: GAI understands most common words and phrases, but it may struggle with slang or abbreviations.
Be clear and specific: The clearer you are in your question, the more likely you are to get a relevant answer. Provide the chatbot with the information it should base its response on. You can ask the chatbot to assume a specific role, such as a famous person or a type of expert.
Specify the desired format: If you want answers in a specific format, such as a bullet list, a table, a summary, or a longer description, specify this in your prompt to get the desired result. You can also specify if you need help with a specific type of text.
Be patient: Sometimes it may take a little time to generate a response. Be patient and wait a while for it to generate the best answer.
Try different phrasings: If you don’t get the answer you’re looking for, try phrasing your question differently. Sometimes a different phrasing can yield better results.
Provide constructive feedback: To improve the answers, you can describe what is missing or what needs improvement for the AI to better understand your preferences.
