Strategy First နှင့် PlagiarismCheck.org တို့ပူးပေါင်းဆောင်ရွက်ပြီး AI ခေတ်တွင် ကျောင်းသား၊ ကျောင်းသူများ၏ မှန်ကန်သည့်ပညာရေးအတွက် ခေတ်မီနည်းပညာများဖြင့်ချဥ်းကပ်ခြင်း

10 June, 2024

AI ခေတ်တွင် ကျောင်းသားကျောင်းသူများ၏ မှန်ကန်သည့်ပညာရေးအတွက် Strategy First နှင့် PlagiarismCheck.org တို့ပူးပေါင်းကာ ခေတ်မီနည်းပညာများဖြင့် ဝန်ဆောင်မှုပေးထားသည်များကို အောက်ပါဆောင်းပါးတွင် အသေးစိတ်ဖတ်ရှုလေ့လာနိုင်ပါသည်။ Strategy First International College  မှ ကျောင်းသား၊ကျောင်းသူများကို မှန်ကန်သည့်ပညာရေးအား ဆက်လက်ဝန်ဆောင်မှုပေးဆောင်နိုင်ရန်အတွက် အစဥ်တစ်စိုက်ကြိုးပမ်းဆောင်ရွက်သွားမည်ဖြစ်ပါသည်။

 

"Academic Integrity: A Modern Approach in the Times of AI "

 

Providing world-class education to the Myanmar people is Strategy First University's cornerstone. Effective learning and equal treatment for students of all backgrounds are impossible without academic integrity, which makes it one of our top priorities.

Challenging enough by itself, this mission has become even more ambitious in the era of AI chatbots, writing assistants, and sophisticated tools that are changing the educational landscape daily. We take the dare to navigate the ever-changing world of modern learning and find new approaches to protecting academic honesty.

Why academic integrity matters

Academic integrity means equal opportunities for all students, developing critical thinking, establishing high standards in education, and better results for the learners. Here is why we outline these core values for our institution and strive to promote academic honesty at all levels.

Academic integrity means:

1. Establishing high standards in education. We believe in the power of every step, no matter how small. Original essays lead to brilliant research works, novel articles, and groundbreaking discoveries that change the world for the better. It all starts within an educational institution, and we do everything in our power to set the highest bar, impacting the way people teach and learn in our university and beyond.
2. Providing equal assessment for all students. Regardless of their background, all students deserve an unbiased attitude and judgment based on their efforts and results. Cheating threatens equality and fair evaluation of students' work. Hence, setting clear rules, uncovering dishonest behavior, and implementing repercussions for cheating are essential for maintaining a healthy environment for effective learning.
3. Fostering independent thinking and a creative mindset. Education is not about memorizing facts and numbers; it is about shaping a way of thinking. Encouraging young people to fact-check and reflect on any information they receive is crucial in the modern world, which is overwhelmed with noise and fake news. Challenging long-standing beliefs and inviting students to share their original thoughts on different matters is one of the ways to develop critical thinking skills and inspire self-expression.
4. Shaping strong professional ethics. Preparing young experts for future jobs is not limited by factual knowledge. Nurturing responsibility and honesty is one of the tasks we see as educators, and doing so starts with university assignments. The way young people approach studying tasks is how they will approach any tasks in their professional environment, which is why cheating and negligence are unacceptable.
5. Respecting intellectual property rights. Cheating, especially plagiarism and copying, violates not only the institution's honor code but also the ethical norms, as it steals from the author. In some cases, plagiarizing can be considered a felony and entail legal repercussions. Hence, the university's mission is to educate students on the importance of originality and promote respect toward others' intellectual and creative labor.
6. Guarding reputation. Building relationships and connections is a huge part of university life. Honesty and reliability are crucial for establishing a high reputation, so young professionals should learn to maintain it from an early stage. Moreover, the way the students perform in a professional environment, the research the scholars do, and the work they produce influence the university's name. So, protecting academic integrity is both a matter of honor and a way of taking care of the students for any school.

Preventing plagiarism as part of academic integrity strategy

Plagiarism is an issue faced by any seasoned instructor. The problem here is much broader than students copying from the book or one another. Sometimes, learners plagiarize without even intending to cheat, and that is where the teacher's task is to educate them on the types of plagiarism and the consequences they entail.

We can outline two main situations in which students commit plagiarism:

1. Intentional cheating. The deliberate decision to break the academic and ethical rules can be caused by a lack of time, motivation, interest, or understanding of the importance of honesty. In any case, plagiarism is an unacceptable offense and should come with severe repercussions. However, we encourage educators to address not only the apparent problem but its true roots, explain the writing ethics, emphasize that the assignment text should be unique, encourage students to express even controversial opinions, and provide the tools to check for originality.
2. Accidental plagiarism. It may be hard to believe, but plagiarism often occurs when the paper's author has no intention of cheating. The reasons can be different: some mistake the ideas they have heard somewhere for their own or common knowledge; some do not know how to paraphrase properly or correctly cite the sources; others are unaware of the existence of self-plagiarism. Educating on plagiarism issues and the ways to ensure originality is the key to academic success when dealing with unintentional copying.

AI chatbots as a new challenge to maintaining academic integrity

AI tools, including chatbots, have changed how people work with information, and the education domain was among the most impacted. Since practically any task can be performed by a chatbot, modern educators face the following challenges:

• find ways to check for AI misuse and protect academic honesty;
• establish ethical and moderate usage of AI technologies in learning;
• outline the skills and knowledge relevant to the students in the future.

AI-generated text, AI plagiarism, and non-AI plagiarism

Apart from cheating by itself when used to generate assignment text, AI output can also be plagiarism. Why so?

We call the text plagiarized when it contains ideas, concepts, information, or pieces of writing taken from someone else without crediting the author. And that is exactly what AI chatbots do. They are trained on some designated dataset and, based on it, generate a new piece, sometimes inserting blatant copy-pasted elements without mentioning the information sources. Formally, the output may sound novel–which is not always the case, as AI-generated assignments can contain plagiarism. But even if the text sounds different, modern plagiarism-checking tools can still find those sources, which can lead to accusations of non-AI plagiarism, even if the author didn’t mean so.

To sum up, educators now face two main challenges:

• Plagiarized texts — when students copy from each other or various sources;
• AI-generated texts — when students ask a chatbot to write an assignment for them, which is cheating unless it was allowed by instructions. This can also lead to unintentional plagiarism, as AI chatbots can generate plagiarized pieces.

Strategy First approach to protect Academic Integrity

To withstand the challenges mentioned above, Strategy First University has developed a number of methods that work when implemented together. Only a comprehensive approach can help to prevent the misuse of modern technologies and, at the same time, find ways to take the best from them to shape a brighter future for education.

Here is a complex of principles and measures we implement to maintain academic honesty:

1. Creative thinking and writing ethics nurturing. No restrictions work long-term without an understanding of why one needs them. So, we prefer the constructive approach of empowering students with tools and inspiration to express themselves and respect others' creative work. This way, the learners focus on what they want to say to the world instead of trying to trick the system.
2. Proper citing learning. Correct attribution is the key to any successful paper in the academic domain. Not all students realize that even mentioning the source in the wrong way is considered a type of plagiarism. Hence, we believe it is essential to teach proper attribution and give the learners all the instruments to do it correctly and efficiently.
3. Respecting intellectual property. Abstract rules sound much less persuasive than real cases and explanations of how plagiarism violates writing ethics and literally steals from the author. We also believe that it is crucial to set an example for students. So, our instructors are the first to respect others' creative efforts and never violate the university honor code.
4. Educating on plagiarism and AI. A deep understanding of the issue changes how students perceive and address the problem. Instead of cluelessly using some tools to make their lives easier, they can look for the correct ways to incorporate the information in their writing without plagiarism or AI misuse. Moreover, educating learners on types of plagiarism and the mechanisms of AI plagiarism helps them avoid accidental cheating, develop their writing skills, and find their authentic voice.
5. Implementing AI in an ethical way. The demonization and ban of AI tools is a road to nowhere, as technologies have already changed every sphere of our world. We believe the solution is to use AI to accelerate the learning process and show the students how to implement the tools ecologically. This way, we invite young people to focus on the constructive side of AI usage and prepare them for the future instead of ignoring the impact of technology.

Modern technologies on guard of academic integrity

With the university's workload and the trickiness of some cheating attempts, it is impossible to ensure each assignment's authenticity manually. We believe educators should focus on developing new approaches to motivate students and helping them polish their skills instead of being snowed up under routine checking tasks. Hence, implementing the advantages of modern technologies has become an indispensable part of Strategy First University's work,

PlagiarismCheck.org has elevated our educators' routines, helped students develop plagiarism awareness, and encouraged the dialogue between instructors and learners.

Here is how the detector helps in the academy:

1. Easier and faster assignment checking. Educators do not waste time manually comparing each assignment to the sources or reviewing the plagiarized essays. So they can provide more qualitative feedback on the original texts and focus on developing creative tasks and upgrading their own skills.
2. Raising awareness. Detecting plagiarism with a tool makes the process apparent. Teachers and students see the list of sources where similarities have been found, and compare the matching parts. Such analysis spurs open dialogue between instructor and student on the nature of plagiarism and cheating, unintentional copying, and the importance of originality.
3. Improving writing skills. When students have the tools to check for plagiarism, they can evade unintentional copying, perfect spelling and punctuation, and work on their mistakes even before getting feedback from their teacher.
4. Protecting reputation. With a plagiarism detector, the institution can be sure that all the published research works and scholarly papers are unique and do not violate any authorship rights.
5. Preparing high-qualified graduates. Adhering to high academic standards, students perform to the best of their potential, ready to benefit future employers.

Comprehensive approach to maintaining academic honesty

Implementing top-notch technical solutions for education, we at Strategy First University have concluded that a complex approach works best for maintaining integrity. Hence, we use several PlagiarismCheck.org tools to ensure all-around attention to AI and plagiarism challenges.

Here are the tools we have successfully integrated into the university's workflow:

• Similarity checker. Flags matches found by comparing the source against databases. We can also add our students' works to the repository, which is very convenient to prevent copying from each other or submitting old assignments.
• AI detector. Shows the teacher the text that has probably been generated by a chatbot. Highlights the questionable parts of the essay and explains how to interpret the results. Helps to catch robot-generated assignments and assists the teacher with a fair evaluation of students' work.
• Integrito Activity Report. Allows the teacher to see how the document was created. Analyzes the writing process, providing information on the editing time and contributors and catching suspicious activity. Gives a clear picture of how the student worked on the paper and whether their effort was authentic.

It is crucial that the tools are seamlessly integrated into our Moodle LMS. So, teachers and students do not need to go the extra mile to perform the checks; the detection is available within the interface they use, and they can get immediate results with one button click, both for AI and plagiarism. This solution has become profound for our institution since the instructors do not have time to master some complicated tools and need the detectors to accelerate their working process, not to overwhelm it.

Bottom line

Strategy First University advocates for a comprehensive modern approach and flexibility to withstand today's academic integrity challenges. We believe that fostering a creative mindset and raising awareness on plagiarism and AI misuse issues should be combined with embracing EdTech solutions. Ethically implementing AI-empowered tools benefits students and teachers, protecting the learners from the negative consequences of plagiarism and safeguarding the institution's reputation. Altogether, it works to maintain a high level of education and ensure highly qualified graduates of Strategy First.