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full-screen AI has provided new opportunities to cheat with assignments and take-home exams. But the number of cases of detected cheating has decreased. Archive image. Photo: Veronica Johansson/Svd/TT
For the second year in a row, the number of students who are suspended or warned about cheating is decreasing. The fears that AI tools would lead to increased cheating have thus not yet come true.
It is the University Chancellor’s Office (UKÄ) that compiled last year’s disciplinary matters at universities and colleges. The report shows that a total of 2,306 students either received a warning or were suspended for a period in 2023. That is 14 percent fewer students than in 2022.
At the end of 2022, the text bot Chat GPT was launched and warning flags were raised that counterfeiting would increase. And yes, last year 27 universities had a combined 227 disciplinary cases involving deception using AI tools. Seven universities had not yet had any cases. But at the same time, other cheating, such as plagiarism, decreased, so overall there was a decline.
At research level
The students had used AI tools mainly to create texts for assignments or answers to exam questions or to improve a self-written text.
Suspicions of cheating have arisen when, for example, students suddenly performed at a much better level than before, even at graduate level, or if a text limped between brilliant and substandard. Likewise, when students failed to remove sentences that directly revealed AI use. The universities also report that they used AI detectors to check for possible cheating attempts.
Continued reduction?
Of course, it is impossible to say how big the number of people in the dark is, that is, how many students got away with AI cheating.
– In several cases that have been discovered, the students do not seem to have even read through the text they submitted, while it is of course more difficult to discover those who used AI in a polished way, says Pontus Kyrk, legal counsel at UKÄ.
Despite technological developments, he believes that disciplinary cases of cheating will continue to decrease. The increase mainly occurred during the pandemic, when students studied and took exams remotely.
– Already last year, the signal was that it is moving more and more towards exam exams, which make it more difficult to cheat. That trend looks set to continue, says Pontus Kyrk.
FACTS Number of disciplinary cases in 2023
The number of students who were suspended or warned by a disciplinary committee was 2,306 last year. That was 14 percent less compared to 2022, when 2,671 students received a penalty.
The 2,306 students correspond to an extremely small part of all full-year students: 0.72 percent.
By far the most common disciplinary cases concern cheating in some form: cheat sheets and unauthorized aids, unauthorized collaboration, plagiarism and fabrication or falsification of documents.
Cheat sheets, unauthorized collaboration and plagiarism are most common.
Students can also end up in the disciplinary committee if they have disrupted teaching, or have been guilty of sexual or ethnic harassment. Such cases occur much less often.
Source: UKÄ’s report Disciplinary cases 2023 at universities and colleges
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