An Ottawa high school has expressed concern about the possibility of student cheating, including the use of emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools to answer test questions. Glebe Collegiate Institute emailed parents to inform them that Grade 11 and 12 students would begin writing final exams the following week, adding that it wanted to bring attention to its concerns about academic integrity around tests and evaluations. According to the memo, teachers have reported students cheating and outlined suspected methods including students using ChatGPT, an AI tool, to aid their examination answers.
The school is working to address the problem for future exams by doing its best to police the situation and implementing measures that might prevent cheating during the coming exam season. Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) officials said the memo was provided partly to inform students about the potential ways technology could be used to cheat on assignments. The OCDSB hopes that the majority of students will not engage in this type of behaviour.
Although the school did not make a board member or the school principal available for an interview, a spokesperson for the OCDSB stated that unless required for accommodation needs, students are not allowed to use electronic devices such as earbuds or phones during exams. A Quebec high school teacher, Tasha Ausman, said that the note did not come across as entirely accusatory but rather as a heads-up to students about the school’s position on new technology.
Ausman suggested that although teachers could still find ways to integrate new technologies, the use of phones and other items needs to be monitored by staff and also reflected on school-wide. Joel Westheimer, a research chair in democracy and education at the University of Ottawa, added that many schools are raising concerns about AI tools that help students cheat. Westheimer suggested that schools should focus more on changing the education system to place less emphasis on ranking and more on pure learning rather than on students’ ability to cheat.
