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Assessing AI: the academic integrity of using artificial intelligence (Chat GPT) in assessment
Full text linkWriting scientific reports is a key skill that needs to be taught and developed in our undergraduate students. In December 2022, there was a rise in awareness of widespread readily-available artificial intelligence language models like Chat-GPT. This awareness caused academics teaching in the tertiary space to reconsider how they could continue to assess skills like scientific writing, in an environment where programs could create large blocks of coherent text within minutes. To address this issue, we created a first-year assessment where students needed to critique an introduction for a scientific report written by Chat GPT4, and then continue to write their own results and discussion for the scientific report. We synthesize how students critiqued the Chat-GPT4-written introduction with regards to structure, scientific writing, use of scientific literature and relevance of subject matter. With the exception of scientific writing style, our academic marker consensus group (n=21) thought that all other parts of the introduction could be improved. Many students appeared unable to critique the introduction appropriately, and found most components of the introduction satisfactory. We discuss the subsequent academic integrity issues associated with the apparent inappropriate use of Chat-GPT in the discussion for some students. We identified apparent inappropriate use of Chat-GPT4 by the finding of fake references in the reference list. Given that artificial intelligence language models like Chat-GPT are not going away, we use our reflections from this assessment to propose a new way forward for teaching first year undergraduate science students to be more skeptical of their use of Chat-GPT4 in scientific report writing
RACI Chemistry Education Division Workshop
Full text linkPURPOSE
Each year, the RACI Chemistry Education Division hold a Discipline Day workshop with a shifting agenda in response to current challenges within the Australian chemistry education realm and the feedback received by attendees.
We welcome all education-interested individuals – students, professional/casual/academic staff, secondary educators in chemistry or science fields. Your thoughts and perspectives are valuable and we hope that these projects can serve the scientific community at large.
WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES AND OUTCOMES
In the first session of this workshop (~30 minutes) we will provide a brief summary on a number of key projects discussed at the 2022 ACSME RACI Chemistry Education Division Workshop. These include:
The development of a modular-based resource collection for undergraduate and postgraduate training in chemistry education research;
A revamp of the Chemistry Discipline Network website for better functionality and access;
Building a business case for the introduction of a chemistry education and/or discipline-based education Field of Research (FoR) code for use in ARC grant processes;
Actively seeking opportunities to host an international conference in chemistry education or discipline-based education more broadly;
Actively seeking sponsorship opportunities to support RACI Chemistry Education Division awards/bursaries at related conferences and/or financial support for small research projects within our community.
The second session of this workshop (~1 hour) will focus on Project 1 above (bolded). The aim of this session is to:
Provide community feedback on the proposed structure and identified topics of relevance to chemistry education research;
Identify existing resources from the community that can be contributed;
Discuss any missed opportunities or potential contributions.
We would also like to acknowledge the broader RACI Chemistry Education Division committee who volunteer their time without whom these projects would not be achievable
Safety issues for women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV): An integrative review
Full text linkThis integrative literature review examines the safety issues for women experiencing intimate partner violence (IPV) in Australian studies. Using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, seven data bases were systematically searched for the study. A total of 10 samples were identified as suitable for the study after a thorough screening of accessed sources. For ensuring the quality and appropriateness of the sources, the CRAAP test, which examined the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose was conducted. A thematic analysis was employed for analysing the data. Four core themes were identified from the analysis, which are: lack of IPV education and training, issues with services, systemic issues, and issues with protection orders. Together, the findings suggest how a range of social processes impact the safety of women experiencing IPV. It necessitates a holistic approach to IPV if women’s safety is to be effectively addressed. It is vital to look at the many layers that impact women's safety rather than a focus on the individuals involved
Developing Virtual Field Trips for Agriculture
Full text linkField trips play an important role in teaching and learning, from stimulating students’ motivations to allowing students to connect in-class concepts and the real world. Including field trips within an agricultural curriculum is essential as concepts are highly interdisciplinary, and knowledge application to a range of production systems and environments is critical. Despite their importance, many factors, such as high enrolments, present challenges to its successful integration. Virtual field trips (VFT) allow universities to leverage the affordances of technology to mitigate some of the associated challenges while maintaining quality course delivery. In this pilot study, an experiential learning activity was designed around a VFT application, and the student experience and outcome were investigated. The student experience measures indicated satisfaction with multimedia elements, although it is noted that improvements to the user interface would enhance the experience. Students had positive reflections on the learning experience, including an increased interest in the field of study but did not see VFTs as replacing actual field trips. Paired t-tests showed students’ attainment of learning outcomes. This pilot implementation provides an activity design for other courses with similar challenges and highlights the value of VFTs to the curriculum for undergraduate agricultural courses
A framework to evaluate what we value in science practicals, and what we assess
Full text linkPractical work (laboratory or fieldwork) is considered a key part of undergraduate studies in the science disciplines. As practical work is often a resource intensive form of learning, requiring specialist equipment, materials, and staff, it is useful to consider how it is being used within the university setting. Bruck and Towns (2013) describe growing concerns around the justification of chemistry laboratory work and sought to describe the laboratory goals for institutions across the United States of America. They suggest there is a need to document laboratory outcomes to provide data that drives iterative cycles of curriculum improvement, greater communication of faculty around laboratory goals, and research into the student perspective (Bruck & Towns, 2013).
In Australia, the science Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) were developed to describe the minimum standards of knowledge, skills and professional capabilities a tertiary science graduate should achieve (Yates, Jones, & Kelder, 2011). These have been further developed into discipline specific TLOs such as Biology, Chemistry and Physics TLOs (Australian Council of Deans of Science [ACDS], n.d.). These discipline TLOs provide a nationally recognised standard for the outcomes of learning in the sciences, including the practical components.
However, concerns have been raised that the TLOs may not be covered and/or assessed to the extent that we may expect. For example:
A study to map the coverage of TLOs in Chemistry across a range of institutions found that some TLOs were not well covered in existing degrees (Schultz, Crow, & O’Brien, 2013).
Development of a tool to evaluate assessment items for coverage of Chemistry TLOs found that some assessment items did not actually assess the TLOs, as claimed by their assessors (Schmid et , 2016).
Benchmarking of practical skills in first year Biology courses found that there was a dependence on using written practical reports as assessment items, rather than assessing the actual skills (Rayner et al., 2012).
A framework will be presented to map the coverage and assessment of practical LOs in university science courses, which when complemented with surveys to ascertain the values academics place on student development of practical skills, will enable evaluation of whether or not we assess what we value in science practical courses.
REFERENCES
Bruck, A. D., & Towns, M. (2013). Development, implementation, and analysis of a national survey of faculty goals for undergraduate chemistry laboratory. Journal of Chemical Education, 90(6), 685-693.
Yates, B., Jones, S., & Kelder, J. (2011). Learning and teaching academic standards project: Science. Final Report. Retrieved from http://www.acds-tlcc.edu.au/science-threshold-learning-outcomes-tlos/science-tlos/
Australian Council of Deans of Science. (n.d.). Comparison of Science TLOs and Disciplines. Retrieved from http://www.acds-tlcc.edu.au/science-threshold-learning-outcomes-tlos/science-threshold-learning-outcomes-tlosbenchmarking/
Schultz, M., Crow, J. M., & O'Brien, G. (2013). Outcomes of the chemistry Discipline Network mapping exercises: are the Threshold Learning Outcomes met? International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 21(1), 81-91.
Schmid, S., Schultz, M., Priest, S. J., O’Brien, G., Pyke, S. M., Bridgeman, A., Lim, K. F., Southam, D. C., Bedford, S. B., & Jamie, I. M. (2016). Assessing the Assessments: Development of a Tool To Evaluate Assessment Items in Chemistry According to Learning Outcomes. In Technology and Assessment Strategies for Improving Student Learning in Chemistry (pp. 225-244). American Chemical Society.
Rayner, G., Familiari, M., Blansby, T., Young, J., & Burke da Silva, K. (2012). Assessing first year biology student practical skills: Benchmarking across the landscape. In 15th international first year in higher education (FYHE) conference. Brisbane: QUT Events
Linguist for the Prosecution
Full text linkIn 1981, a Sydney husband was arrested on a charge of homicide. When originally interviewed by the police, he had produced a six-page letter which he claimed had been written by his wife as a farewell to the children. Among other things the letter explained that the wife was leaving home to live with another man elsewhere. As the police could not find the wife's body, the authenticity of the letter became critical. Although the police were suspicious, any possibility of arguing for its genuineness would have seriously undermined the other evidence. Because the letter had been typed on the family typewriter, and because the husband insisted that the wife had written it, the likely authorship was reduced to either the wife or the husband. As the letter was completely typewritten without even a signature, it could not be subjected to the usual handwriting tests. However, the police were able to obtain a reasonable amount of material that had been written by both the husband and the wife in the months preceding the event. It became a question of comparing the disputed letter with other writings of the husband and wife to see which one was the likely author
The Living God in Aelfric's De Falsis Diis
Full text link'He always took great pleasure in instructing the young men and boys, in explaining Latin books to them in the English language, in teaching them the rules of grammar and metre, and exhorting them gently to strive for greater things.' This was said of Aethelwold, bishop of Winchester 963-84, but the same and more could be said of his pupil, Aelfric, with the added proviso that linguistic competence was desirable, not merely as an end in itself, but as the means to a greater end, the propagation of the faith. Writing in English for the benefit of a non-Latinate audience, Aefric addressed the problem of an inadequately educated clergy with realistic practicality by providing two collections of homilies for the Temporale and some supplementary pieces. For the monastic schola he produced a grammar based on Priscian, the first such work in English, a Latin-English vocabulary, and a colloquy to assist in learning Latin. In response to specific requests or requirements he also wrote an anthology of saints' lives for devotional reading, a condensed version of the Regularis Concordiae, several pastoral letters, and some translations from Scripture into the vernacular, this last being undertaken with the utmost reluctance on Aelfric's part. In each case the appropriate material is presented in a style both rich and lucid, innovative and apt, guiding understanding, correcting error, teaching the true faith.
The Gobar in Egils saga Skalla-Grimssonar
No full textEgils saga Skalla Grimssonar is unusual among the Islendingasogur in setting most of its action outside Iceland. Its eponymous central figure lives quietly when at home in south-west Iceland: he does not generally meddle in local affairs, and few are anxious to challenge him. The saga might, therefore, seem an unpromising source for a student of the gobar: Icelandic sources very rarely portray gobar exercising their authority outside that country; and the powers and responsibilities of the Icelandic gobar naturally impinged most on those who actively involved themselves in the life of the community. Yet the saga is, in part, the story of the establishment, in their new country, of a powerful and prosperous Icelandic family, the Myramenn, and both Egill and his son, Porsteinn, are gobar. If, as has often been suggested, Egils saga was written by the famous author and statesman Snorri Sturluson (1178/79-1241), it is the work of a man who was a descendant of the early Myramenn, a gobi himself, and a leading panicipant in the thirteenth-century power struggle whose protagonists strove, inter alia, to accumulate goborb ('Chieftainship'), the rights and powers attached to the gobi's office. If, as generally believed, Snorri came to possess the Myramannagoborb, one might expect him to take a shrewd interest in its ninth- and tenth-century origins, and perhaps even to present it in a way which subtly bolstered his own claims to authority in the Borgarfjqor district
Words and Wordsmiths Front matter
No full textOn December 31, 1987, Leslie Rogers retired as McCaughey Professor of Early English Literature and Language at the University of Sydney, a Chair which he had held since July 4, 1966. The co-sponsorship of this volume by The University of Sydney Arts Association, of which he has been Secretary and President, and The Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture marks an appreciation of his long and active membership of the Faculty of Arts. Early in his career at Sydney, where, in 1958, he took up a Senior Lectureship in the Department of English, Leslie became Sub-Dean (1960--62) to Professor John Dunston and, subsequently, Pro-Dean to Professor Ralph Farrell in 1967. From 1968-71 he was Dean of the Faculty, during a busy period of re-structuring and expansion of the faculty system. He has served twice as a Fellow of Senate, first (1968-69) in his capacity as Dean, and later (1974-75) as one of three professorial Fellows· elected by the academic staff
Gesturality: An Ethico-Aesthetic of Anxiety in Late Photography
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By examining the iconised photographs of the COVID-19 pandemic, published under the heading of The Great Empty by the New York Times in March 2020, this article explores the aesthetic operations and ethical implications of representing anxiety through photographing desolate landscapes. To do so, it situates these images within the genre of late photography, also known as aftermath photography, to discuss how emptiness can function as a surrogate for anxiety. First, by foregrounding the unique temporality of the landscape genre in photography, it examines the aesthetic dimension of seeing deserted places in photographs. By shifting its focus from the image to its caption, it then discusses how the caption of such photographs can interpolate an ethical dimension onto them. Finally, by drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy of “gesture,” the article puts forward that the combination of aestheticized photographs with ethicised captions in The Great Empty expresses anxiety as a mode of gesturality: a sui generis communicational mode that simultaneously galvanizes and paralyzes the viewer.