Assessment Design and the ethical and responsible use of GenAI: Implications for Equitable Pedagogy

Abstract

The University of New England, like many other universities across Australia, has adopted policies that allow individual Unit Coordinators (UCs) to make judgments on whether students can use GenAI in a responsible manner. However, although responsible usage of GenAI has merits, it does raise crucial ethical dilemmas. For example, since UNE’s student body is predominantly comprised of the mature-aged cohort who prefer the flexibility of online study (UNE, 2021), not all students may choose to use GenAI or have the capability to do so. For assignments in which UCs allow the responsible use of GenAI, it is fair to say that not all students will use GenAI. Given the current limitations of academic integrity investigation to detect and confirm the use of GenAI, students who choose to use or not use GenAI should not be at an advantage or disadvantage. Hence, equity aspects of GenAI “OK” assessment design cannot be overlooked. So, the question of, how can UCs mark assignments prepared with or without the use of GenAI in a fair manner without inadvertently disadvantaging or advantaging one or the other? Drawing on the TEQSA’s (2021) Higher Education Standards Framework, scholarly as well as grey literature, and experiences from the first-year marketing unit (MM110), this study proposes a student-centered ethical and responsible GenAI use guideline to inform assessment design. Given that GenAI has become a critical challenge for UCs familiar with Bloom’s Taxonomy-based marking rubrics but influenced by the teaching and learning environment of the pre-GenAI era, the findings and subsequent recommendations of this study are expected to make contributions towards equitable pedagogy.