Discussion Paper on the Impacts of Artificial Intelligence Technologies in the Tertiary Education Sector

Considerable focus in recent years has been the use of AI and similar systems to assist students in their studies. As with future instructors, students and workers will live in a world where they work with AI systems, and therefore developing their understanding of these systems is needed for students to produce legal and ethical work in the university setting, but also in their future careers. The higher education setting is a good place to model these ethical practices. At present, concerns about the misuse of AI by students has been largely devolved onto teaching staff, with limited provision of appropriate resources and ambiguity as to what is the acceptable use of writing support and what is not. Teaching staff and students are already familiar with commercial systems that check for plagiarism and other failures of academic integrity standards. Many of these systems are proprietary products and their introduction has been undertaken without consultation. As we move forward, the lessons of these implications need to be applied so that a regime of academic integrity is clear, fair, reviewable, and participative of design.