New Threats to Educational Integrity in Academic Writing

This lecture will cover some of the newest developments in academic integrity, including advanced tools that are being used by students and academics to bypass text-recognition plagiarism systems. Automated paraphrasing tools, digital writing assistants, and the rapidly expanding (though not new) business of contract cheating will be addressed.

These new threats are often based on advanced and emerging technologies and raise existential questions about the integrity of assessment in higher education. The implications for how educators and institutions can deal with such cases are explored, and key elements of the debate in policy in higher education will be described. Ultimately, the lecture argues that we are at a crucial juncture in which we must decide how technologies, including artificial intelligences, can be used effectively and ethically in higher education assessment.

Dr. Jasper Roe FHEA, Head of department, Language School, James Cook University Singapore.