AI and the New Plagiarism Standards

Ruby Johnson

Plagiarism, cheating, falsification, unauthorized collaboration, and multiple submissions have all been issues that have affected student’s work done at school and at home with AI advancing. Almost every social media app has AI, which is a major concern of the school board because it gives students more resources for cheating.
“This policy was most likely established due to concerns post-Covid and the rapid adoption of AI in education,” said department chair and social studies teacher Alison Cota
With the use of AI, lots of plagiarism is taking place, with students submitting work that is partially or wholly generated by AI. The school board believes the current academic integrity policy doesn’t accurately state what qualifies as plagiarism. There has been confusion on if even one sentence copied would be considered plagiarism.
“We are working to remove the word substantial from the policy stating that only substantial plagiarism is unacceptable,” said APT president and English teacher Elise Marks.
APT is making an effort to emphasize that even a sentence plagiarized is not okay, and is a violation of academic integrity.
Cota said teachers have reported high rates of academic integrity violations, prompting board action and community concern from teachers and parents. The new policy is seen as a response to these concerns and is meant to set boundaries for AI use.
“We think it’s important to be transparent about our expectations for our students,” Cota said.
The Board expects that students will be more aware of the consequences for violating the policy, since it emphasizes academic honesty and integrity as fundamental components which define a students education, and they’ll only reach their full potential if they’re honest with their school work.
If students fail to abide by these expectations, consequences according to what grade they’re in will occur, meaning older students will face bigger punishment, which wasn’t an existing component of the policy until now.
“The policy aims to define academic dishonesty, and there will be grade-appropriate consequences,” Cota said.