BRANDON — A former Brandon University instructor is accusing dozens of students of using artificial intelligence to cheat on assignments, and the post-secondary institution of failing to properly address the issue.
Matt MacDonald, who taught English literature at BU between January and mid-April, said about 40 of his 70 students cheated on assignments by using AI tools to write them.
He said he used Snapchat’s AI function as a tool to identify assignments written by AI, asking it a number of questions about the subject studied in class and transcribing all of those answers into a Word document.
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“Then I took some of my undergraduate assignments from before ChatGPT was released and transcribed those, as well,” he said.
“I did a verbal analysis of all the different words and phrases that showed up in each one because the AI uses the same words and phrases over and over.”
The comparison, he said, allowed him to determine which assignments were likely written by AI.
“Assignments that had about the same amount as my old assignments were probably written by people,” he said.
“The assignments that had a huge number of words that the AI content had were probably written by AI.”
McDonald said he’d reported about 15 cases up to the end of his contract April 19, but BU’s administration allowed him to continue investigating.
He said that faculty of arts dean Gregory Kennedy asked him to conclude his investigation by the end of April, which he said he could not do because of the number of students involved.
“I voluntarily decided to resolve the grading issues caused by academic misconduct,” he said.
The university is defending its commitment to integrity and fairness. In a statement, a spokesperson outlined the steps taken after the initial reports of academic misconduct were submitted.
“Following this process, after the instructor submitted his initial reports, the dean met with students himself, reviewed all of the evidence, and consulted with colleagues and resources on AI to decide,” the statement said.
“In several cases, the dean upheld the instructor’s recommendations. In other cases, the dean came to a different determination, either regarding the allegations themselves, or relating to the sanction he thought was most appropriate to ensure consistency across the faculty of arts… we are confident that the process produced fair outcomes.”
The university’s handling of the matter was not flawed because McDonald doesn’t agree with the outcome, the statement said.
“BU takes academic integrity seriously and will continue to be vigilant in enforcing the policy,” it said.
Kennedy did not respond to the Brandon Sun’s email and calls.
MacDonald also alleged there was unfair treatment of some, especially international students, in handling the cases.
“I observed harsher punishments for males, particularly international students, and leniency for females, especially domestic students,” he said. “I reported this bias to Brandon University’s human rights department, but their power to act was limited.”
The university did not respond to the allegation of unfair treatment but stated that under its academic integrity policy, both the instructor and the student have the right to appeal the dean’s determination; only the instructor did, in this case.
“In some of these latter cases, this instructor exercised that right. They were given every opportunity to express their concerns and to submit their evidence in writing to the appeals committee of the BU Senate,” a spokesperson said.
Brandon University Student Union president Charles Adamu, who also sat on the academic integrity committee, confirmed MacDonald submitted allegations of racism directed at students and academic misconduct to the committee, but there were no reports to the union from students.
BU said acceptable AI use varies across courses, from those that prohibit any to those in which AI is integral to learning.
“Between ‘no AI’ and ‘go AI’ there is also plenty of room for ‘slow AI,’ where students may be permitted or encouraged to explore AI use in some ways — say perhaps for generating a list of ideas,” the university statement said.
“Students should review each course syllabus carefully and ask their instructor if they are unsure whether any particular use of AI would constitute a breach of academic integrity.”
Brandon University Faculty Association president Gautam Srivastava said the issue of AI-enabled cheating is a global challenge.
“Many universities, journals and papers are currently grappling with the new ability to generate content using AI and resources like ChatGPT,” he said.
“There is no definitive answer yet on how to handle such cases. I think we’re still learning how to deal with that.”
He said the university is using the case to understand and develop better policies.
“I think one thing that this case has done for Brandon University is to bring the focal point into a real-world scenario,” he said. “This is the first type of allegations towards students of this kind that I’ve seen at Brandon University.”
Sarah Eaton, chair of leadership, policy and governance at the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary, provided insights into best practices for handling academic misconduct involving new technologies.
“Policies should be developed and implemented at an institutional level to ensure consistency of student experience across courses,” Eaton told the Sun in an email.
“AI is relatively new in higher education, and professors need guidance on its fair and equitable implementation. Students should expect a reasonable level of consistency across their courses.”
Eaton said it is not enough for policies to exist, but they must be accessible and enforceable. And she said anti-racism training is essential.
— Brandon Sun