Reimagining Academic Performance Management in the Age of AI

Abstract

The university’s initial response to the spectre of artificial intelligence nullifying the efficacy of traditional academic performance assessments may present us with, if the reader will indulge an old chestnut, a case of ‘c’est vouloir prendre des li`evres au son du tambour’. That is to say, the unexpected 2022 arrival of ChatGPT (to say nothing of the progeny rapidly evolving AI systems will likely spawn next) is at this very moment spreading like an intellectual pandemic – whether professors wish to acknowledge its presence or not. As a community dedicated to thoughtful education, this new technology compels us to choose between three entirely distinct strategies: Ignore the impact of large language models on learning and assessment altogether and watch our students’ skills erode – the default non-response if we fail to act; or Fight against the inevitable incursion of cut-and-paste technologies such as ChatGPT by categorising them as forms of plagiarism, banning their use in academia, and trying to identify their offspring so we can apply largely feckless punishments as imagined remedies; or Embrace the new technologies and harness them in ways that radically recast core international educational and assessment practises, making them more suitable for the world in which we actually live. Ignore the impact of large language models on learning and assessment altogether and watch our students’ skills erode – the default non-response if we fail to act; or Fight against the inevitable incursion of cut-and-paste technologies such as ChatGPT by categorising them as forms of plagiarism, banning their use in academia, and trying to identify their offspring so we can apply largely feckless punishments as imagined remedies; or Embrace the new technologies and harness them in ways that radically recast core international educational and assessment practises, making them more suitable for the world in which we actually live. This paper imagines just such a third way. By contextualising technological advances as useful tools that can decolonise ailing education systems, the author imagines new evidence-based teaching and assessment strategies that can challenge students to achieve higher academic standards, making higher education increasingly impactful on the real world. The opportunity, this paper argues, is for international educational systems to ‘go beyond the unknown to meet the known’.