A Video Clip You Should See, Courtesy of CBC

Plus, fun with headlines. Plus, Northern Michigan too. Plus, meet Wizeprep. Plus, International Quick Bites.

Jan 24, 2023

Issue 183

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CBC Must See TV

CBC, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, has a story out about - what else? - cheating with ChatGPT.

They really ought to just call it CheatGPT.

Anyway, the written story is fine. There are a great many similar to it.

What’s a must see, in my opinion, is the video that goes along with the story. In it, CBC goes out to Western University in Ontario - The University of Western Ontario - and talks to students about CheatGPT.

The whole video is worth seeing but at about 1:03 in the video, a conversation starts with two students. One of them says he’s:

already seen a bunch of people using it for schoolwork and stuff

Because, when you talk to students about cheating, they always say their classmates are cheating - never them. But that’s not what makes this video clip remarkable.

A few seconds later, at about 1:30 in, the first student says:

I know a couple guys at Queens who’ve used it and they’ve gotten zeros on all their submissions because they have AI trackers already.

That’s fine. No idea if it’s true.

But the indispensable bit, the bit you must see, is the reaction of the other student in the video. His reaction and body language are everything. He’s both shocked and worried - all in about two seconds. He audibly, incredulously mouths, “really?”

It’s important because in those few seconds you can watch the risk/reward calculations play out. I’m inferring, I understand. But it seems obvious to me that the mere possibility of being caught is significantly altering his thinking, in real time.

The video clip necessitates a review of the research last year finding that the only thing that reduced cheating during online exams was the threat of “exam surveillance” and being caught - even though the professors made it up (see Issue 108).

Those who doubt the major role that potential detection and likely consequences have in deterring academic misconduct should play that quick clip on a loop. When students learn they may be caught - that other students have been caught - things change.

Meet Wizeprep - Yet Another Cheating Provider

A reader of The Cheat Sheet wrote in to be sure I was - we all were - aware of Wizeprep, which certainly appears to be yet another service that will give answers to homework, coursework or exams - for money.

Just like Chegg and Course Hero and others. The market is not exactly lacking for people willing to trade integrity for profit.

At first glance, Wizeprep looks like a study provider. That too is typical. But once you get in it a little bit, it’s pretty obvious that it sells answers. This is from their website:

Upgrade to the Wizeprep subscription and get unlimited questions answered.

Convenient.

Northern Michigan Too

Business Insider has an article this week on - what else? - ChatGPT and cheating.

It’s not insightful or newsworthy. The gist is that college students are using ChatGPT to cheat and professors are trying to figure out what to do about it.

The only reason I’m including it here is this graph:

Antony Aumann, a philosophy professor at Northern Michigan University, and Darren Hick, a philosophy professor at Furman University, both say they've caught students submitting essays written by ChatGPT.

Furman, we knew about. Northern Michigan University is new and it should be on the record. Though at this point I suspect that any university you asked would say the same thing, that students are using ChatGPT to cheat.

Fun With Academic Integrity Headlines

The Toronto Star has an opinion column this week with this headline:

Academic papers written by AI get a solid B — but is it cheating?

Yes. Yes it is.

Meanwhile, University Business, also in Canada, ran a story with this headline:

Are universities doing enough to address academic misconduct in research?

No. They are not.

There, I just saved you like 12 minutes of reading.

News from Kenya that recent exam results are raising eyebrows - their phrasing. Yet the country’s education minister denies there was cheating saying, “We said the centre manager will be personally accountable for any irregularities. We designed a form for security personnel to sign how things went.” That ought to do it. Nice job.
State K-12 schools in New South Wales in Australia have reportedly banned access to ChatGPT. They are not the first and will not be the last.
The Ministry of Education in Kuwait has found students cheating on recent exams in 10th, 11th and 12th grade - 40,000 of them. Yes, 40,000. So far, 26 people have been arrested.