Abstract:

This reflective paper considers changes in the educational space with the arrival of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI). This is currently a very relevant and important topic, where there are more questions than answers. The impact of this on Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), as well as possible approaches to deal with the disruptive nature of GAI needs to be investigated. This paper presents a reflection on this issue from two different perspectives, where the authors represent the directorship of a school of computer science and information systems. The authors consider current narratives and explore how they play out in the context of a South African Higher Education Institute (HEI). The background and literature review includes a description of the context, reference to the most recent computer science curriculum of the Association for Computing Machinery (CS2023) and a discussion of the history of technological changes in Computer Science and Information Systems education, as well as the history of GAI. This is followed by a discussion of the different perspectives of the authors. The first perspective is leaning towards allowing all students to use GAI in the classroom and the rationale behind this reasoning is discussed. This section includes an example of how this was trialed in the teaching and learning of a specific module in the first semester of 2023, showing instances of building assignments, rubrics, and examples with the use of GAI. Additionally, students were actively encouraged to use and explore this technology, and a discussion of what worked well and what did not is presented. The second perspective questions the value of allowing students to outsource their thinking and not being able to fully claim that the artefacts and products of their minds are their own. The risks of using generated rubrics and automatic marking of generated work are discussed, as well as the paradigm shift needed to ensure that, while moving into the future, we do not neglect foundational knowledge. The paper includes advice on plagiarism and the way this should be handled in the future as well as how student work should be interpreted when the submissions are a combination of their own work and generated content. The impact of the human factors relating to lecturers are discussed and guidance is given on how to lead a department / school during these changing times. The paper concludes with a recommendation on which topics should be discussed in the context of academic departments in HEIs to ensure that the transition to this brave new world is disruptive in more positive ways than negative ways, allowing pitfalls to be identified and opportunities to be embraced.

Keywords:

Computer science education, IS education, educational leadership, assessment, plagiarism, generative artificial intelligence.