Identifying Plagiarism in the AI Era: Challenges Faced by Educators

ORLANDO, Fla. – The growth of AI is putting schools, students, and teachers in a difficult position.

For students, being accused of plagiarism can result in a failing grade or, in certain schools, even expulsion. With technological advancements, it is increasingly easier to utilize AI and more challenging to detect, posing a problem for everyone involved.

“We receive calls every day from students who are accused of academic integrity breaches related to AI,” Susan Stone, an attorney at Kohrman Jackson and Krantz, informed News 6.

Stone and Kristina Supler co-chair the Student and Athlete Defense practice group, focusing on helping students accused of cheating using AI.

“In our law practice, we observe this inherent conflict between students and often professors about what constitutes responsible and ethical use of AI,” Supler stated.

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Establishing where that line is drawn can be difficult. While programs like Grammarly assist with phrasing, spelling, and punctuation, other tools can go much further. Programs like ChatGPT can create everything from a few sentences to a full paper in a matter of seconds.

Complicating matters further, many systems used to check for plagiarism rely on AI themselves.

“We’re seeing so many instances in which a paper or an essay is flagged by an AI detection system, and then there is no dialogue about what you did or didn’t do,” Supler said.

One recent study found that one in 10 assignments used some form of AI, while roughly 3% were entirely created using AI. These numbers have prompted schools to step up detection as programs become more advanced and easier to use.

One thing some schools have considered is returning to traditional methods: paper and pencil. For students accused of cheating, experts recommend documenting everything. Using tools like Google Docs can help track writing and prove, if asked, that the work is original.