Establishing trust and a sense of community can reduce cheating, so develop policies and practices that promote a positive learning community (see Rettinger, 2022). In fact, some instructors have students co-create course honor codes and discussion norms, and this would be an ideal situation for such collaborative practices. Ironically, threatening or punitive language in a syllabus can break down instructor-student relationships and make cheating psychologically easier for students. This doesn’t mean you cannot lay out consequences, but lead with the reasons for ethical behavior, and avoid legalistic or adversarial tones.
If your course has opportunities to address ethics in the discipline, be ready to address those, too. What are the benefits of integrity in your field, and what are the implications of mis-representing their work?
Help students understand why you are giving them assignments, and emphasize how reliance on AI can hinder their learning (although there might be ways AI can help that process, too). Do you talk with your students about what you want to see in their writing, and do your assignments and grading practices reflect that? Students sometime cheat because they think an assignment is simply a mechanical performance for a grade, so the more you can show the benefits for learning—personal relevance, reflection on the process and their growth, feelings of accomplishment, etc.—the less likely they are to take those shortcuts.
Again, if you can make career connections within your course, address how reliance on AI-writing can hinder their development of writing skills that employers highly value.
Not only should you be specific about your expectations surrounding the use of AI-generated or -assisted writing, but it doesn’t hurt if students are aware of your knowledge about Chat-GPT and other AI tools—what they are, how they can be used, some of their markers and characteristics, their limitations, etc. This can not only be a deterrent to its use, but it can also open up meaningful conversations about the role AI can play in your discipline.
Be transparent in your syllabus and disclose to the students If you will be using Turnitin or another AI detection tool when reviewing student papers. This is another opportunity to discuss the ethics of plagiariasm and the use of AI tools.
A significant reason students cheat is because they feel overwhelmed, so consider if your course workload or assignment timing might be contributing to this pressure and working against your goals for student learning. Similarly, designing writing assignments that only include the one final paper can lead to procrastination and desperation, both big causes of cheating. Having students build towards that assignment in smaller chunks can reduce that procrastination anxiety..., and give you more reference points about their writing style along the way.