Discussion Board

I am here to share one of my experiences when learning in an English course. In this course, the teacher employs AI tools to assess all students' presentations, with acknowledgment, of course. However, I believe such action may fail or undermine the teacher's role and uniqueness in this class. Although the number of students is huge, maybe it's easier for the teacher to use AI for assessment. I think the teachers can employ more TAs to assist with the assessment. I think for future cases, the university can lower the teachers' workload or recruit more TAs to prevent teachers from using AI assessment.

Digital ethic is definitely a important topic and interesting topic in nowadays life. As we students, we need to handle with mountains of course work or some research work everyday. Thus, with the help of ai we do reduce lots of stress from these unavoidable work so that we can spend some time on what we really interesting in or something more need to do. But as for these "ai Work", are there really responsible for the teacher or are there really helpful to our study?

When I was grading undergraduate students' assignments several weeks ago as a TA (it's a kind or creative writing based on personal expereinces), most students wrote sincerely, with more or less spelling or grammar mistakes. However, there was a student that did a perfect job without any mistakes. When I checked more carefully, I found that the personal expression in the essay, though beautifully written, was kind of general and hollow. I doubted if this essay was totally generated by AI, but I didn't want to misjudge either. So in the end I gave the student a relatively high score (not the best as the content is not good enough, but you can never say that writing in a certain style is WRONG in creative writing). I feel that this is a kind of dilemma like a student asking you for a leave because she/he has a stomachache. You must say yes no matter it's the real situation or an excuse. But I still wonder if it's fair to other students if a student using AI can get a higher score.

I suspected that some groups' presentations were generated by AI. Since they need to work on the presentations based on the same script, there are a few similarities, and they seemed not familiar with what was written on the slides, especially in the analysis part. I can totally understand if they use AI to rephrase or paraphrase different translations or editions of the script, or to beautify/enhance their slides. However, the analysis part is the most critical part of the AMs, as it drives the students to reach the LOs, thus I really want to see their personal insights and analysis to see what they've learned and how I can help as the TA.

To address this, I ask questions based on what they presented or the script to make sure everyone was engaged in the TLAs. However, the presentation was difficult to discern where AI has been employed, and equally challenging to point out evidence of its use in oral presentations.

When I did TA during my master, there was a student, whose assignment showed 85% AI on Turnitin. That assighment was a qualitative research using in-depth interviews. I emailed this student and required 2-3 pages of the transcripts. Sadly, the transcripts showed >90% AI on Turnitin. The student was a quiet person and never late/absent for class, I wondered why, so I did a face-to-face meeting with that student. Instead of blaming, I asked the student "Is everything okay in your life or your study?" , suddenly the student cried and said "I planned to interview 15 people, but only 4 agreed to take my interview. I would rather make up the rest 11 transcripts than admitting my failure in connecting with people!" ......Everything went clear. I told the student, "Please change your focus from 'what you do not have (the 11 people)' to 'what you already have (the 4 people)', go deeper into the existing 4 transcripts, and rewrite your assignment. Honesty is the biggest success." Then after the meeting, I invited the course instructor to give some suggestions on finding interviewees and sending interview invitations to that student.

A few years ago, there was a collaboration between CityU’s School of Creative Media and the ICC to display student artworks on the ICC façade. The brief stated that works would be reviewed by a committee including ICC representatives and had to comply with “ICC policy and ethics as elaborated in the display guidelines of Sun Hung Kai Properties.” Although students could access these guidelines, they had little say in shaping them. The ethical issue lies in how such collaborations position students within corporate frameworks, where creative expression must align with private standards. It raises broader questions about autonomy and consent in educational partnerships, and how universities can safeguard integrity while working with commercial institutions.

I used to face a real dilemma during my master's studies. A student used AI to write the final dissertation but still got his master degree smoothly and he did not acknowledge it. In his case, he violated the principles of honesty, fairness, responsibility and courage, his actions constituted data falsification, cheating and plagiarism. The appropriate response would be reported the issue to his supervisor or relavant office. To provent similar issues happened again, universities should use detection tools to check if the dissertation was written by AI and provide clearer guidelines on AI use.

For my previous study, I sometimes encountered some scenarios like students actually used AI tools but they didn't use citation to explain. Specifically, there are mainly two situations. Some students use it without acknowledging it, while others use it but are unsure whether they need to cite it. However, regardless of which of these two situations, I think that the emergence of these problems is related to academic integrity. In view of these issues, solutions are essential. Universities must establish clear policies defining acceptable AI use and explicitly prohibiting AI-generated submissions for graded work. Furthermore, integrating AI literacy into the curriculum is crucial to teach students how to use these tools ethically as assistants for research and idea generation, not as substitutes for their own intellectual effort.(from Deepseek)

For my previous study, I sometimes encountered some scenarios like students actually used AI tools but they didn't use citation to explain. Specifically, there are mainly two situations. Some students use it without acknowledging it, while others use it but are unsure whether they need to cite it. However, regardless of which of these two situations, I think that the emergence of these problems is related to academic integrity. In view of these issues, solutions are essential. Universities must establish clear policies defining acceptable AI use and explicitly prohibiting AI-generated submissions for graded work. Furthermore, integrating AI literacy into the curriculum is crucial to teach students how to use these tools ethically as assistants for research and idea generation, not as substitutes for their own intellectual effort.(from Deepseek)

During my undergraduate studies, I encountered a case where a classmate submitted an assignment generated entirely by AI without acknowledgment. The ethical issue centered on academic integrity—misrepresenting authorship, undermining fairness, and bypassing the learning process. I raised the concern with the instructor and suggested a conversation with the student, guided by the university’s policy. An appropriate response balances accountability and learning: require the student to resubmit with a transparent AI use statement, show drafts and reasoning, and, if policy mandates, apply academic integrity procedures. To prevent similar cases, set clear guidelines about acceptable AI use and citation, design assessments that include process evidence (drafts, reflections, oral checks), and provide examples of responsible AI integration. Education and clarity reduce temptation and support honest learning.

By the way, I think the course director could contact this student directly, get his/her explanations before conducting decision if possible.