Dutch universities still struggling to uncover work written by ChatGPT

Universities in the Netherlands are looking for ways to demonstrate when students are guilty of using ChatGPT, software that uses artificial intelligence to write pieces of text. Institutions said that text written by the program can be classified as academic fraud, but it is still difficult to prove, representatives of several universities told ANP.

If students have not written something themselves, they are not allowed to present it as self-made work, explained the University of Twente. But even if a student is honest about it, the use of ChatGPT can be seen as fraud, according to Maastricht University. This is the case when the use of ChatGPT makes it impossible to assess the student's skills.

Universities check student text for signs of that work was copied from another without properly referencing the source. However, ChatGPT can produce text including source references, so such plagiarism checks are insufficient.

Educational institutions are now looking for new solutions. One possibility to prevent the use of ChatGPT is to have students explain their work, said Utrecht University. Their reasoning is that having the student describe how they arrived at a certain point of view becomes more difficult when artificial intelligence wrote the piece.

Nyenrode Business University also suggested testing under surveillance as an option. Another possibility is to ask students to include very recent sources in their work, because ChatGPT may not have become aware of them. It can also help to ask students to formulate certain answers in a specific way, some universities indicated.

The creator of ChatGPT has also developed a program that can recognize text generated by their AI. The University of Twente said it does not yet fully trust such software and that recognizing text formulated by AI is really "the beginning" of a conversation with a student, "never the completion."

Several universities also emphasized that AI can also make a positive contribution to education. Tilburg University noted the possible opportunities, and the University of Amsterdam saw potential in the software. The Protestant Theological University wondered "whether there are applications of ChatGPT that are not fraudulent but rather helpful in education."