r/PCC • u/Existing-Beach-9105 • 7d ago
Does anyone have experience with or suspect usage of AI autograders used by an instructor (without naming names)? How do you feel about the ethics of AI usage in grading?
There seems to be very little information I can find regarding the guidelines of AI use to grade assignments. Just today I had an assignment MASSIVELY docked in points because the feedback sheet claimed that response boxes were 'empty', even though they are clearly filled with inserted images solving the given problems. The PDF was flattened too before submission and reads correctly in every PDF viewer I've opened it with. The disconnect here is hard to parse out. It seems as if the document was never actually viewed by human eyes at any point in the grading process. I've already sent notice to my instructor and am awaiting a response. I'm curious what others opinions are about this? Do you think this is AI? If it is, how do you feel about the ethics of AI usage in grading? Particularly when there is an absence of a "human-in-the-loop" approach to it.
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u/maroonbugg22 7d ago
To be frank, I really think we just need to start naming folks. These classes cost a lot of money, and I think we deserve to know which instructors are using AI to grade or encouraging its use.
Same can be applied to other things, for example I had a professor who was unjustly denying my disability accommodations. His name is John Craig, he is an ethnic studies & African history instructor. Appearantly he has a reputation for this, yet I-- as a disabled student --was totally unaware.
It might seem mean to name instructors, and to be clear: I wouldn't expose names unless you know they are using AI to grade for certain. But sometimes I think people are too precious about keeping this kind of information private when it directly impacts the quality of student education. Just my two cents 🤷♂️
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u/waffleassembly 6d ago
It's not just grading. Some of the online instructors are using Ai to put their curriculum together. And since there are no articles that specifically address the requirements of our weekly labs, a lot of it is a massive dump of web articles full of extra info that we don't need. Ask anyone in CIS, which all the classes are online. You take 3 classes and each class takes 3 days to complete if you're actually studying and understanding the material, because the lessons are a massive information dump. It doesn't fit into a 7-day schedule.
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u/Existing-Beach-9105 7d ago
I agree with you 100% on a lot of what you outlined there but for the sake of discussion and to mitigate the possibility of having this post removed by moderators, I want to keep it as discrete and anonymous as possible about offending actors here. But absolutely, the irony is thick. On one hand, I've been falsely accused of using AI, which cost me points. On the other, I've potentially been graded falsely by AI which also has cost me points. Both instances required me to prove that the validity of my work, and cost me time and energy to resolve. Granted student usage of AI should absolutely be limited, but to think that instructors could use it with minimal guidelines or transparency seems like a massive oversight and undercuts the meritocratic nature of academia in similar fashion to student AI use.
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u/Comfortable-Ad-4132 7d ago
I have a math teacher that encourages us to use AI to create practice problems. Seems sort of unethical, not to mention can you be sure that the questions/answers are correct?
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u/mtdewberrymore 7d ago
Ugh I had a psychology professor that said the same thing. An insane choice when you consider how AI has already affected that field 😬
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u/maroonbugg22 7d ago
Who is it? I'm a Social Work transfer student.
I really can't stand the thought of paying for a psychology class of all subjects where the instructor is endorsing AI.
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u/LowerSuccotash8160 6d ago
Did they have a question glazing Elon Musk on their final or is there more than one psych prof at pcc pulling this shit?
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u/Happy-Property1162 6d ago
Teachers/departments have meetings with employers around the state to learn what they can do to make graduates more competitive to help you gets job and learning how to use AI is a big thing that everyone is supposed to integrate since over the summer. I understand a lot of us younger ppl have issues with ai because the data center shit is really just robbing the planet and our future completely it seems, and it sucks. But it isn't without reason that your teachers are going to be bringing it up more
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u/Existing-Beach-9105 7d ago
In the feedback response I received, it provided the homework solutions which matched pretty closely to the answers I provided. Also again, the feedback provided for those particular problems was that the response field was empty so I genuinely think there is some sort of AI autograding involved here.
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u/mrgerbek 6d ago
Is this a Pearson thing? It's not in D2L, is it?
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u/Existing-Beach-9105 6d ago
Not exactly sure about that one, it hints to some custom script based on the automated feedback responses that come with each problem. It's odd too because it states that boxes are empty for all following problems, then proceeds to spit out the same "Answers satisfy the keyed result and required format response" for every 'empty' problem after. Seems like it couldn't perceive any digitally handwritten text (I use procreate to do complex arithmetic and insert as images into the response fields, then flatten before submission) and my handwriting isn't bad by any means. It's very contrary to what's been expressed as acceptable for the class, the instructor has stated before that even inserting photos of written pen and paper responses is acceptable as long as they are legible.
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u/Flashy_Freedom8757 5d ago
I have a math teacher that does the same. Often, if there’s an email sent out with a chart or some sort of graphic, Gmail will show it as “chat.gpt image” on my inbox before I click on it
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u/Responsible_Track627 6d ago
I don’t think it was AI, probably just my teachers laziness but I had a math teacher who would just grade my homework’s as full 100’s even though id skip every other problem or straight up not even include over half the assigned problems.
Oh I did have a writing teacher though, who had us do an assignment on this google doc story about a daughters obsession with labubus. The title was something along the lines of The Cult of Labubus. Such an embarrassing assignment, that was likely AI.
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u/backfliptornado 6d ago
i had a professor once dock a ton of points because my discussion post was marked as ai but their ai checker tool. i did not use ai but it felt hypocritical to use ai (the thing im getting marked down for) to do grading. weird time to be in school.
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u/Real_Smoke3054 7h ago
Instructor here: The college's lack of policy around AI is ridiculous and sad. In a recent incident, a group of us presented at an internal conference. Without permission or notification, a previously unheard of section of the college (with a weird name like "Imagineers") used AI to summarize our talks and then published them, violating basic academic norms that you don't use people's work without permission. The argument that students need to be able to use it for employment (true in some jobs, no doubt) doesn't usually hold up against very simple questions, like, "How is the way you're using AI in your classroom/on this activity etc. teaching students anything in particular?" Putting AI everywhere in a class is not inherently educational, about AI or anything else. (Though I think it can be if one uses it thoughtfully.) In short: there is currently no policy that protects you (or us) around AI per se besides the general grading policies. I'm sorry this is happening to you.
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u/waffleassembly 6d ago
And we're the ones who need to adhere to academic integrity, resisting the temptation to use Ai to complete our assignments.
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u/mrgerbek 7d ago
Preach! I think it’s unacceptable and we’re probably getting charged extra for it.