My take on GenAI in learning and assessment

Hi, 

Please forgive the blanket broadcast, but I wanted to make something clear; I know a few of you I no longer teach and you’ll be graduating soon, but it seemed easier to send to everyone. 

GenAI… it’s seen by many academics as a threat, because it overturns years (decades?) of assessment practice, making previously time-consuming tasks relatively easy. There are local, institutional, national, and international debates about how to deal with it; I know, because I have the honour of being involved across the planet in these often heated discussions. 

Even the UK Government in a recent paper for consultation are of the view that “the right to read is the right to mine”; a pretty shocking ‘laissez faire’ (anything goes) approach justified by (in my words) the idea that if everyone else is looting we should too! They word it as not impeding a competitive advantage of UK based AI companies at the expense of copyright holders. It truly is a “if I can see it I can steal it” doctrine, because protecting rights holders is, apparently, something no competitor country or company will do. 

So, there we have it. GenAI is likely to be endorsed as necessary to our economy. You better start learning it. I know some already are. If, by the end of your course you don’t know how to: 

1) set up a local GenAI (and it being standalone, not needing an internet connection);

2) improve your GenAI prompting skills; 

3) apply what I call ‘The Three Vs’ (verification, validation and veracity), so you know the output is good, true and relevant.

you will have missed out. This is going to be the defining skill of your generation. 

To that end, I’m going to encourage (and try to support) you all to use these tools as much as you are willing to; I can also see the virtue in eschewing (deciding not to use) them and approach assessment ‘naked’ and I’d give credit to that approach too. So, I’d like to encourage either strategy. If you use GenAI add chat logs to your submissions, and use repo commits with comments to track evolving your code for me, so we can see how you use these tools, capturing the process. If you are GenAI free make a declaration in your submission. 

I see it as vital you start using these tools or showing what you can legitimately do without them. The best way is to document your process. I’m going to lead by example and capture my logs and start using them myself. Who knows, I might just manage to keep up with you all.

tl;dr

Dont be afraid of GenAI (in my assessments and classes at least). Know what each individual lecturer needs from you, and honour it; if they say no GenAI, there is probably a good reason. You will have a safe space to experiment in my modules, or already have in the case of the final years. BUT document your usage.

DoctorMike