Author: Briana Fraser

AI tools & privacy

Briana Fraser

ChatGPT is underpinned by a large language model that requires massive amounts of data to function and improve. The more data the model is trained on, the better it gets at detecting patterns, anticipating what will come next and generating plausible text.

Uri Gal notes the following privacy concerns in The Conversation:

  • None of us were asked whether OpenAI could use our data. This is a clear violation of privacy, especially when data are sensitive and can be used to identify us, our family members, or our location.
  • Even when data are publicly available their use can breach what we call contextual integrity. This is a fundamental principle in legal discussions of privacy. It requires that individuals’ information is not revealed outside of the context in which it was originally produced.
  • OpenAI offers no procedures for individuals to check whether the company stores their personal information, or to request it be deleted. This is a guaranteed right in accordance with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – although it’s still under debate whether ChatGPT is compliant with GDPR requirements.
  • This “right to be forgotten” is particularly important in cases where the information is inaccurate or misleading, which seems to be a regular occurrencewith ChatGPT.
  • Moreover, the scraped data ChatGPT was trained on can be proprietary or copyrighted.

When we use AI tools, including detection tools, we are feeding data into these systems. It is important that we understand our obligations and risks.

When an assignment is submitted to Turnitin, the student’s work is saved as part of Turnitin’s database of more than 1 billion student papers. This raises privacy concerns that include:

  • Students’ inability to remove their work from the database
  • The indefinite length of time that papers are stored
  • Access to the content of the papers, especially personal data or sensitive content, including potential security breaches of the server

AI detection tools, including Turnitin, should not be used without students’ knowledge and consent. While Turnitin is a college-approved tool, using it without students’ consent poses a copyright risk (Strawczynski, 2004).  Other AI detection tools have not undergone privacy and risk assessments by our institution and present potential data privacy and copyright risks.

For more information, see our Guidelines for Using Turnitin.

Getting Started with ChatGPT

Briana Fraser

Tips for writing effective prompts

Prompt-crafting takes practice:

  • Focus on tasks where you are an expert & get GPT to help.
  • Give the AI context.
  • Give it step-by-step directions.
  • Get an initial answer. Ask for changes and edits.

Provide as much context as possible and use specific and detailed language. You can include information about:

  • Your desired focus, format, style, intended audience and text length.
  • A list of points you want addressed.
  • What perspective you want the text written from, if applicable.
  • Specific requirements, such as no jargon.

Try an iterative approach

Ethan Mollick offers the following:

  • The best way to use AI systems is not to craft the perfect prompt, but rather to use it interactively. Try asking for something. Then ask the AI to modify or adjust its output. Work with the AI, rather than trying to issue a single command that does everything you want. The more you experiment, the better off you are. Just use the AI a lot, and it will make a big difference – a lesson my class learned as they worked with the AI to create essays.
  • More elaborate and specific prompts work better.
  • Don’t ask it to write an essay about how human error causes catastrophes. The AI will come up with a boring and straightforward piece that does the minimum possible to satisfy your simple demand. Instead, remember you are the expert, and the AI is a tool to help you write. You should push it in the direction you want. For example, provide clear bullet points to your argument: write an essay with the following points: -Humans are prone to error -Most errors are not that important -In complex systems, some errors are catastrophic -Catastrophes cannot be avoided.
  • But even these results are much less interesting than a more complicated prompt: write an essay with the following points. use an academic tone. use at least one clear example. make it concise. write for a well-informed audience. use a style like the New Yorker. make it at least 7 paragraphs. vary the language in each one. end with an ominous note. -Humans are prone to error -Most errors are not that important -In complex systems, some errors are catastrophic -Catastrophes cannot be avoided
  • Try asking for it to be conciseor wordy or detailed, or ask it to be specific or to give examples. Ask it to write in a tone (ominous, academic, straightforward) or to a particular audience (professional, student) or in the style of a particular author or publication (New York Times, tabloid news, academic journal). You are not going to get perfect results, so experimenting (and using the little “regenerate response” button) will help you get to the right place. Over time, you will start to learn the “language” that ChatGPT is using.

Get ChatGPT to ask you questions

Instead of coming up with your own prompts, try getting the AI to ask you questions to get the information it needs. In a recent Twitter post, Ethan Mollick notes that this approach produced surprisingly good results.

Ideas for using ChatGPT with students

For lots of great ideas and advice, watch Unlocking the Power of AI: How Tools Like ChatGPT Can Make Teaching Easier and More Effective.

  • Use it to create counterarguments to students work. Students can use the AI output to further refine their arguments and help them clarify their positions.
  • Use it to write something for different audiences and have students compare the output and identify how writing changes for a general versus expert audience.
  • Use ChatGPT for a first draft and then have students edit a second draft with critiques, corrections, and additions.
  • Use it to start a discussion. For example, ask ChatGPT why one theory is better than another. Then, ask again why the second theory is better.
  • Use it to generate a list of common misconceptions and then have students address them.
  • Ask students to generate a ChatGPT response to a question of their own choosing, and then write an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the ChatGPT response.

Some ways you can use ChatGPT

  • Use it to create a bank of multiple choice and short-answer questions for formative assessment. It can also pre-generate sample responses and feedback.
  • Use it to create examples.
  • Use it to generate ten prompts for a class discussion.

Further reading and resources

Heaven, W.D. (2023, April 6). ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it. MIT Technology Review.

Liu, D. et al (2023). How AI can be used meaningfully by teachers and students in 2023. Teaching@Sydney.

Mollick, E. R., & Mollick, L. (2022). New modes of learning enabled by AI Chatbots: Three methods and assignments. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4300783

Rudolph, J. et al (2023). ChatGPT: Bullshit spewer or the end of traditional assessments in higher education? Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching. Vol. 6, No. 1.

ETUG Spring Workshop 2023

Briana Fraser

The Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG) is a community of BC post-secondary educators focused on the ways in which learning and teaching can be enhanced through technology. ETUG’s mission is to support and nurture a vibrant, innovative, evolving, and supportive community that thrives with the collegial sharing of ideas, resources, and ongoing professional development through face-to-face workshops and online activities.

Spring Workshop

This two-day online and in-person workshop will showcase how instructors, education developers, and education technologists are approaching design. For example, we’ll explore how digital literacy, inclusive technology, and AI could be “baked” into courses and how instructors are supported in making design decisions around technology. We’ll also consider the ongoing communication and capacity-building at institutions around digital literacy, accessibility, and AI, such as how teaching and learning centres and libraries get the word out to instructors and students about new approaches and resources.

Join ETUG online in Zoom or in-person at Kwantlen Polytechnic University Lansdowne Road Campus in Richmond, B.C. for this 2-day hybrid event, sponsored by BCcampus.

  • Day 1: June 1, 2023: 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM Pacific Time
  • Day 2: June 2, 2023: 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Pacific Time

Workshop Rates: 2-day Registration Only

  • Early Bird In-Person: $175 CAD + 5% GST (ends April 29 at 11:59 PM)
  • Regular Rate In-Person: $200 CAD + 5% GST
  • Online: $150 CAD + 5% GST
  • Students: Free

Childcare

Attending an event sometimes means choosing professional development at the expense of spending time with family, but for large, multi-day events hosted by BCcampus, participants do not have to choose one over the other. Please let us know when you register if you will require childcare. You can read more about our childcare program and provider here Childcare Program Information

In order to secure nannies in time, our childcare registration cut-off date is May 15, 2023. 

Registration

Register online to attend the ETUG Spring Workshop

 

Improve Students’ Experience in Brightspace by Adding Dates

Briana Fraser

Adding dates in Brightspace is a great way to support students’ time management. Dates populate the Work To Do and Calendar widgets so that student can keep track of what’s due and when. Due dates can be added to almost all items, activities, and modules in Brightspace.

Students have two options for seeing upcoming items with a due date — The Work To Do widget and the Calendar widget.

Work To Do is an organizational widget, meaning that it appears on Langara’s Brightspace homepage and provides learners with a summary of assigned learning activities from all their courses that are overdue or have an upcoming due date or end date. Work To Do can also be added to a course homepage to show only due and overdue learning activities from the course.

The Calendar widget can be added to a course homepage and displays content items with due dates and all calendar events.

Start Dates, Dues Dates, End Dates, Access, and Availability

In Brightspace, Start Date, Due Date, and End Date can be set for Assignments, Quizzes, and Content modules and module content items. Start and End dates can also be set for Discussions.

Due Date: Due dates specify when an activity or item is due. When you add a due date to an item, activity, or module, it will automatically be visible in the students’ Calendar.

Note about Due Date: Due dates do not restrict students’ ability to submit materials. If students submit work past the due date, the submission will be identified as late. To restrict access to an item, add a start and/or end date.

Start Date: Start dates specify when students can access items, activities, or modules. Before the start date students can see that an item exists, but they cannot access it. If no start date is set, students will be able to access the item immediately (unless it is hidden).

End Date: End dates specify when students will no longer be able to access an item, activity, or module. After the end date, students will only be able to see the title. If you want students to be able to submit late, do not set an end date.

If you want students to be able to submit late, do not set an end date.

Tip: Since items, activities, or modules with an end date are not accessible and students cannot submit their work after the date, it is important to clearly communicate expectations to students to prevent any misunderstandings.

Special access: It is possible to make exceptions for the end date for specific students with the Special Access option. You can use special access conditions to open content access for certain students outside the specified dates.

Availability: You will sometimes see this header before the option to add a start date and end dates. These start and end dates work the same as listed above.

Note about Availability: Be careful with Availability and Hide from Users. Clicking the Hide From Users checkbox will hide content from users until you uncheck the box. An Availability start date does not override the Hide from Users option. We recommend you only use one.

Display to calendar: Not all dates/times show up automatically on the Brightspace calendar. If a Display to calendar check box appears, select this option to push the dates to the calendar.

Our Recommendations

  • Add due dates to marked activities and assessments, so students can use the Calendar, Work To Do Widget, and Notifications to help manage their time.
  • Add Start and End dates when you want to limit access.
  • Use Due Dates or End Dates, but not both.
  • Use Dates judiciously, marking only those activities and assessments that have a firm due or end date.
  • For content due dates, rather than placing the due date on the content item, create a checklist with a due date for all the content and ungraded work that must be completed for a specific class.