Dr Loretta Goff, University College Cork
It was wonderful to end 2024 with the news that myself and my colleague, Dr. Sarah Thelen, received the inaugural SATLE Impact Award in the category of Academic Integrity. It was gratifying to be recognised nationally for our efforts in this area and, beyond this, the funding attached to the award will enable us to expand our support for academic staff and students, fostering academic integrity amidst technological advances.
As the Academic Integrity Education Officer at University College Cork (UCC), based in our student-facing Skills Centre, I saw the challenge that generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) presented soon after the release of ChatGPT, and the need for guidance on responsible use. I began working on the “(AI)2ed: Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence in Education” project, which partnered students and academic staff across UCC’s four Colleges to reimagine assessment in light of GenAI, uncovering approaches that either mitigated against the misuse of GenAI or effectively integrated it into learning activities and/or assessment design across disciplinary contexts. Ultimately, the project produced the Toolkit for the Ethical Use of GenAI in Learning and Teaching. At the same time, Dr. Thelen, Lecturer in Teaching and Learning Enhancement (Digital Education) with the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning, produced a Short Guide to Assessment in the Age of GenAI. These two resources formed the basis for our collaborative effort to support staff and students.
Academic integrity was the lens through which we framed our approach, highlighting proactive steps academic staff could take to foster this during periods of rapid change (reducing fear of this) and guiding responsible use of emerging technologies, evaluating where they can enhance learning without bypassing it. Our efforts in this area include the development and delivery of resources and training opportunities (short courses and workshops), research projects, and sharing our practice beyond UCC through publications, presentations, open resources. This has resulted in increased student and staff understanding of academic integrity and responsible use of GenAI. As an example of this impact, over 5,000 staff and students engaged in training sessions and short courses, and many staff identified interventions in their practice to support academic integrity as a result. These interventions include adjusting rubrics, writing GenAI statements, redesigning assessment, co-creating with students, providing students with skills toolkits, and having transparent guidance for/conversations with them.
The continued development of GenAI and other technologies makes this a challenging topic to keep pace with, meaning our resources and sessions require regular reviews and updates. Equally, while guidance in this area is often, necessarily, general so that it can apply broadly, there are many nuances to how developing technologies have and will continue to affect different disciplines, which requires more specific attention. Our ongoing work in this area includes developing a GenAI Learning Hub for students to support informed decision-making around GenAI use and to promote critical engagement with these tools, as well as projects focused on AI literacy. Looking forward, we plan to focus on more specialised aspects of academic integrity and the digital future, and to collaborate with colleagues that have expertise in these areas to develop focused resources and hold events for specific cohorts.