Artificial intelligence is impacting higher education. Millersville University established a task force to educate faculty and students on its use, both positively and negatively, including the text application ChatGPT.
ChatGPT can write text from short stories to computer programs, songs and entire essays for assignments.
Chad Hogg, an assistant professor of computer science, taught a freshman class about the application. He warns that ChatGPT can be used effectively for research and problem-solving, but it should be used ethically. He says, “It’s a tool as long as you’re using it in ways that make sense, in the same way that a hammer can be a tool or thing of destruction.”
Hogg says the text can mimic a human’s writing in some ways, but it can provide false information.
Students say they’ve had mixed experiences. Andrew Delich says he knows students who’ve used it write entire papers, which he says undermines the whole reason for learning.
Another student, Ella Eshleman, says she was able to use it in a positive way to solve a problem.
Nazli Hardy, an associate professor of computer science, said, “If we use artificial intelligence to give us all the answers, what we are losing as students and human beings is our agency, our creativity, our grit. ”
The task force will come up with recommendations that could be implemented in the school’s Academic Integrity Policy.
