From detection to development: how universities are ethically embedding AI-for-learning

• HEPI Director Nick Hillman’s verdict on the Budget can be found on the Times Higher website here.
• Today’s blog was kindly authored by Mike Larsen, Chief Executive Officer at Studiosity, a HEPI Partner.

The future of UK higher education rests upon the assurance of student learning outcomes. While GenAI presents the sector with immense opportunities for advancement and efficiency, the sector is constrained by an anachronistic model of plagiarism detection rooted in adversarialism. I believe the ‘Police and Punish’ model must now be replaced by ‘Support and Validate’.

A reliance upon detection was perhaps once a necessary evil but it has never aligned with the fundamental values of higher education. The assumption that policing student behaviour is the only way to safeguard standards no longer applies.

Such a punitive policy model has become increasingly untenable, consuming valuable university resources in unviable investigations and distracting from universities’ core mission. I believe there is a compelling alternative.

As assessment methods undergo necessary change, higher education institutions must consciously evaluate the risks inherent in abandoning proven means of developing durable critical thinking and communication skills, such as academic writing. New learning and assessment methodologies are required but must be embraced via evidence and concurrently protect the core promise of higher education.

An emerging policy framework for consideration and research is ‘support and validate’ which pairs timely, evidence-based academic support with student self-validation of authorship and learning.

Building capability, confidence and competence provides the ideal preparation for graduates to embrace current and future technology in both the workplace and society.

The combination of established and immediate academic writing feedback systems with advanced authorship and learning validation capabilities creates a robust and multi-layered solution capable of ensuring quality at scale.

This is an approach built upon detecting learning, not cheating. Higher education leaders may recognise this integrated approach empowers learners and unburdens educators, without compromising quality. It ensures the capabilities uniquely developed by higher education, now needed more than ever, are extended and amplified rather than replaced by techno-solutionism.

We must build a future where assessment security explicitly prioritises learning, not policing. For UK higher education, a pivot from punishment to capability-building and validation may be the only sustainable way to safeguard the value of the degree qualification.

Studiosity’s AI-for-Learning platform scales student success at hundreds of universities across five continents, with research-backed evidence of impact. Studiosity has recently acquired Norvalid, a world leader in tech-enabled student self-validation of authorship and authentic learning, shifting how higher education approaches assessment security and learning.