ChatGPT Abuse: A teacher refuses to mark her students’ homework

A professor at a university institute in France decided not to mark the exams of 120 first-year students because of the students’ excessive use of the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program.

“This is a class of about 120 freshmen […] who had to provide a written document on hydrotherapy, ”explained Samuel Cruz-Lara, director of the IUT Charlemagne in Nancy (east) on Monday.

“When grading marketing tasks, the teachers in charge of grading realized that the students made excessive use of ChatGPT: their transcripts did not contain the slightest spelling error, or consisted of searched phrases,” Cruz-Lara continued.

“Had we had more time, we could have asked the students to explain themselves, which we have done with some, who half-verbally perceive things. Except that we are at the end of the school year, and as far as the calendar is concerned, it is difficult for us to respond.

The professor in charge of the subject collectively decided, along with other fellow graders interfering with the unit, not to mark the disputed written test.

However, the IUT director wanted to be reassuring: “The students will still have a mark in this subject, and they will not be penalized.”

For the future, he decided to “not cut off access to this type of tool from the IUT”, but to “engage with students to discuss the risks of benefit and support them in using ChatGPT”.

It is also envisaged to amend the internal regulations of the IUT: “We already have a clause on plagiarism, and I will ask to add one related to AI-type tools, the use of which will be punished in the same way as plagiarism.”

For its part, the University of Lorraine, of which IUT Charlemagne is a component, “has not yet made a public decision” on the use of artificial intelligence.