Discussion Board

I haven't attend the lecture today, but from what I saw, lots of previous posts are generated by AI, and their points are all reasonable, detailed and precise.  For me without AI I can raise only very few points to discuss. I think what I could do is just confess "I can't live without AI" and try to make everything look better.

1. Case
A graduating senior student was overwhelmed by the dual pressures of job hunting and thesis writing. Facing extreme anxiety and a tight deadline, the student encountered a commercial ghostwriting agency online that promised a "professional, original, and 100% confidential" thesis for a high fee. The student paid for it and submitted the ghostwritten thesis.

2. Ethical issues

Violation of Educational Equity: When a student uses financial privilege to bypass the rigorous research process, it creates an unfair advantage over peers who invest genuine time and effort. This deeply undermines the principle of meritocracy in education.

Damage to Institutional Integrity: If academic degrees can essentially be purchased, the credentials issued by universities lose their social value and credibility, leading to a systemic breakdown of trust between academia and society.

3. How to prevent

Reinforce Management: Students must be required to submit milestone updates (e.g., literature review, methodology, first draft) into an institutional portal. A thesis cannot be cleared for defense without a verified, step-by-step history of mentorship and progress.

Establish Diversify Assessments System: Institutions should strengthen academic writing centers and mental health support to alleviate graduation anxiety, teaching students that navigating academic struggle honestly is a vital part of education.

Case I want to raise:
A student uses generative AI not just to polish language, but to restructure their argument and reorganise their ideas. The final essay reads clearly and logically, but the thinking process — the struggle to find the right words and connections — has been replaced by the AI. The student believes this is acceptable because the original research was done by them.

What ethical issue does this involve?
I think this goes beyond simple dishonesty. Writing is not only a way to communicate ideas — it is also a way to develop them. When AI rewrites not just the surface language but also the logical structure of an argument, the student misses an important part of the learning process. In a way, they are presenting a thinking ability that is not truly theirs. This creates an unfair situation for other students and also raises a deeper question: who is the real author of the work?

What actions would be appropriate?
Rather than punishing students immediately, I think the first step should be a conversation. The instructor can ask the student to explain their thinking process and walk through their key arguments verbally. This makes it clear whether the student genuinely understands their own work. If the AI involvement was significant and undisclosed, a resubmission with a written reflection on how AI was used would be a fair response.

How can we prevent this in the future?
One useful approach is to design tasks that require students to show their thinking process — not just the final product. For example, instructors could ask for drafts, outlines, or short recorded explanations of key arguments. In my own research, I have found that the process of working through difficult ideas — even messily — is often where real understanding is built. If we skip that process, we may produce polished work but lose the actual learning behind it.

Case: I have seen a case where a student directly submitted AI-generated content as their own work. 

I think it is academic integrity because the work may not truly reflect his own understanding and effort. While AI can be a useful learning tool, students should use it responsibly and follow the course guidelines. In this situation, it would be more appropriate to acknowledge the use of AI and ensure that the final work includes the student's own ideas and critical thinking. To prevent similar issues, universities and instructors should provide clear guidance on acceptable AI use. Students should also understand that AI is a support tool rather than a replacement for learning.

1. Ethical & integrity issue

This behaviour counts as undisclosed AI use, a violation of academic integrity. It is a form of partial plagiarism: the student hides AI assistance, misrepresents all writing as their original work, and breaks assessment rules about transparent source acknowledgment.

2. Appropriate actions

I would talk privately with the student first to hear their reasoning, then explain the AI citation rules clearly. I let them resubmit the essay with full AI disclosure and deduct a small mark for non-compliance, instead of giving an immediate fail.

3. Prevention methods

Teachers should deliver clear guidelines on citing AI tools at the start of courses. We can also add AI acknowledgment sections to all assignment rubrics, and hold short workshops to teach proper transparent AI usage.

My Response

The ethical issue here is undisclosed AI writing assistance, a serious academic integrity violation. The student failed to declare AI rewrote their essay, misleading teachers that all ideas and language were their original work, which equals incomplete plagiarism against course assessment policies.

My proper response would be a one-on-one conversation with the student to understand their confusion about AI rules. I will require them to rewrite and resubmit the essay with clear AI tool citations, with a moderate mark deduction as a warning.

To avoid similar cases later, instructors need to distribute explicit AI citation rules at course launch. We can also add AI disclosure columns to analytic rubrics and host brief training sessions for students on transparent academic AI use.

Case A:

Unacknowledged AI rewriting generally crosses the line into academic dishonesty. While using AI as a basic grammar checker is acceptable, letting it completely restructure and rewrite prose masks the student's true writing ability and voice.
However, in some others situation, such as using AI to provides some ideas, rather than the whole paper, it will be the good types using of AI tools in the study and research. It can help students find somethings they may not consider about. And, befor they use, they need to make sure AI provides right conclutions.

I observed a case where a student used AI to rewrite an essay without proper acknowledgment. The ethical issue involves plagiarism and academic dishonesty, as the student passed off AI-generated work as their own, violating principles of intellectual integrity.

Appropriate actions would involve reporting the incident to the academic department while adhering to due process. The student should be required to resubmit the assignment and educated on the unacceptable nature of this practice.

To prevent future issues, universities must establish clear policies regarding generative AI tools. Teachers should also focus on assessing critical thinking through in-class assignments, making it harder for students to rely solely on external technologies. 

AI is a good tool to help us solve the problem in writing，coding，analysing and so on. But now most of us rely on using them without thinking of the words it written. Especially, I meet some students using AI to analyse data while some results are wrong and being not mentioned in the data. So we should be careful when using these tools by checking.

For the student case:

The core ethical issue here is academic dishonesty and a lack of transparency. By using AI to rewrite the essay without acknowledgment, the student misrepresents machine-generated structural refinement and phrasing as their own authentic work, violating the principle of intellectual integrity.

An appropriate immediate action would be for the instructor to hold a private, developmental discussion with the student. Instead of jumping straight to severe punitive measures, the instructor should clarify the boundary between using AI as a tool versus plagiarism, requiring a resubmission that includes proper disclosure of the tools used.

To prevent this in the future, institutions must establish explicit, assignment-level guidelines on permissible Generative AI usage. Furthermore, educators should integrate process-based assessments—such as requiring rough drafts, peer reviews, or brief oral reflections—making uncredited AI intervention both difficult to utilize and easy to identify.

A student copied a full assignment written by another learner from public online forums and submitted it as his own work without citing the original author.

Ethical issue: This behaviour violates online copyright rules and constitutes digital plagiarism. It fails to show the student’s own research and critical thinking. Learners must credit all online sources they reference. Teachers can ask students to submit research notes alongside final work to reduce copy-and-paste misconduct.