The University of Reading recognises the rapid development in this area since ChatGPT3  came to global attention in December 2022, following its launch by OpenAI in November 2022 and becoming freely available. 

The accessibility of ChatGPT has increased the number of people who will test it and contribute data to ChatGPT and thus train the tool. There is a wider University Academic Integrity Review under way and as part of this we need to carefully review, evaluate and test AI tools with potential academic use. We will continue to update colleagues as progress is made and guidance becomes available.

ChatGPT has evolved quickly and is an example of an AI writing tool, with the most recent version ChatGPT-4 released on 14.03.2023. It writes content which is structured well, grammatically correct and generally provides a good user experience.

ChatGPT provides not only opportunities but challenges to our teaching and learning, assessment practices and academic integrity.

ChatGPT: Teaching and learning

Guidance is being developed for staff and students about responsible use of ChatGPT to ensure a consistent approach across the University.

AI literacy is key to supporting staff and students to gain a deeper understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of AI tools such as ChatGPT in Higher Education. It presents challenges not only for teaching and learning but assessment as well.

ChatGPT: Assessment and academic integrity

The issues posed by the advent of ChatGPT for assessment practice are not necessarily new to the higher education sector, so there is an opportunity to transform the way we carry out assessment to accept and embrace AI tools.

We will focus on assessment design and continue the conversation with our community.

Assessments that are not a student’s own work, including written by AI programmes such as ChatGPT, remain in breach of our Academic Integrity and Academic Misconduct Policy (see section 9.2 a) i - Plagiarism.”

Professor Louise Hague.