Dear Editor,

We are in the final weeks of this semester, yet there is no clear guidance from our tertiary institutions concerning the use of artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, inclusive of the infamous ChatGPT, for academic purposes.

The absence of clear guidelines handicaps both faculty and students in terms of the extent to which ChatGPT specifically can be used. We do not know what constitutes an overuse of the chatbot and what constitutes plagiarism in today’s academic sphere.

I have been conducting some scientific studies on higher education stakeholders’ usage and perceptions of ChatGPT for teaching and learning purposes, and the data indicates numerous advantages. Teachers use it to generate ideas for lessons, create quizzes and other assessments, and provide feedback to students’ work. One of the notable benefits for teachers is that ChatGPT makes their work easier and, thus, they save time. For students, they use the AI tool to generate ideas for assignments, demystify complex instructions and content, and polish their written productions so that they sound more ‘academic’.

But how do we grade assignments that are completely produced by AI? This is why university administrators have to move with alacrity to implement policies that guide our usage and grading. This critical decision cannot be left to individual lecturers because some are in favour of using AI while others are not. Additionally, some have no in-depth understanding of the capacity of some of these AI software.

Indubitably, our hands are tied as lecturers, especially concerning assignment creation. It calls for us to be creative and innovative in our pedagogical approaches. But to what extent can we compete with a chatbot that ‘thinks’ faster than human beings?

I noted in a previous column that teachers were once considered the more knowledgeable and competent other, but ChatGPT is seemingly replacing us as the more competent non-biological other. It has become students’ best tutor.

In a recent conversation with one of my students, he noted challenges understanding a mathematical concept. His lecturer’s delivery method was just not connecting with him. He told me that he went home and asked ChatGPT to explain the concept, which he grasped in a short period.

Undoubtedly, we live in a fast-paced world and the current generation is considered digital natives. They have greater access to devices and other resources to complement and enhance learning, compared to even a decade ago. As lecturers, we certainly want them to develop their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, but are they really going to depend solely on their own brains when technology provides a quicker solution?

Evidently, we cannot evade ChatGPT and other AI platforms in our teaching and learning activities. As lecturers and higher education institutions, we just have to embrace them. However, we need specific directives to govern our usage. Should we ask students to indicate that they have used ChatGPT and note the parts of an assignment for which they have used it?

At the same time, more efforts are needed to guide students in terms of notions and practices of academic integrity, ethics, and plagiarism.

Next month (November) will make two years since the advent of ChatGPT. While this chatbot has been a disruptive enhancer to higher education (and other sectors) and a tool that has been rocking brains globally, our administrators and policymakers need to do more in guiding its usage at the tertiary level.

Oneil Madden

maddenoniel@yahoo.com