Thread by @sbayne

Discussions of context relating to #ChatGPT and #assessment in #HigherEducation are a bit thin on the ground: the structural condition of universities are a big part of why many commentators see it as a 'threat'. A short thread with readings👇 1/9

high student numbers, precarity and crushing workloads mean there is rarely time for academics to gain the familiarity with students’ writing approaches needed to support good practice, or to innovate with form: @UCU workload survey 2021 (pdf) ucu.org.uk/media/12905/Wo… 2/9

across the UK sector, the volume of summative assessments being set has risen steadily over recent years: @HEPI_news Student Experience Survey 2022 (pdf) hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/upl… 3/9

this is part of a broader culture of growing student performance measurement which also includes contribution grading, attendance monitoring and the normalisation of online surveillance architectures: @profbmac on student performativity hub.hku.hk/bitstream/1072… 4/9

commodification and the ‘student as consumer’ ethos has created a focus on the ‘policing’ of misconduct to protect the ‘exchange value’ of the qualifications universities provide: @SiouxMckenna on plagiarism and commodification link.springer.com/article/10.100… (sorry, paywall) 5/9

this blocks other ways of understanding the value of assessment – eg as being developmental, authentic or demonstrative of students’ transformative relationship with knowledge: @JanMcArthur on rethinking authentic assessment eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/1655… 6/9

there is moral panic around ChatGPT misconduct in public forums but, as with essay-writing services, we have little evidence of the extent to which students are actually interested in using generative AI to ‘cheat’: @TheSCCJR on contract cheating sccjr.ac.uk/wp-content/upl… 7/9

partly due to all the above, dependence on data-extractive platforms for policing plagiarism are normalised in HE: these directly profit from the panic while their use drives a wedge of distrust between students and teachers: see our @eddiged book blogs.ed.ac.uk/manifestoteach… 8/9

fix the above ☝️ then we can get on with imagining creative, scholarly, profound and fun ways to use ChatGPT and other interesting new technologies in our teaching 9/9