In general, all course coordinators are encouraged to experiment with testing previous exam questions to see how the AI tool responds and use this information to strengthen their current exam questions. We also encourage you to test old exam questions against the GPT 3.5 model to understand whether AI can answer your exam questions.

If you think or experience that your exam questions are vulnerable to AI tools like Copilot, here are 7 tips for writing new exam questions that can mitigate the risk to some degree:

1. Use prompts that require incorporating multiple, cited sources in writing: The accuracy of the chatbots’ citations is one of their shortcomings , so prompts that require students to use multiple sources can help mitigate this issue. (e.g. How is this article connected to shared themes, arguments, and ideas in the course?”) 

2. Emphasize hands-on and practical applications: Ask students to apply their knowledge and engage with course concepts or topics through personal experiences and self reflections.  

4. Ask students to create visuals such as mind maps and diagrams 

5. Encourage critical thinking, and focus on process/rational questions: Avoid multiple-choice questions that are easily solvable by AI, and add questions that involve analyzing, or evaluating information. For example “Which solution to a problem is more appropriate and why” so that students explain the rationale behind the answer  

6. Ask questions that are specific and based on recent events: By asking questions about recent events it increases the likelihood of the tool making up for the content gaps, which could be obvious for an instructor to notice 

7. Asking students to reflect on their learning from specific teaching sessions, cases, or other context-rich material or experiences is another example where the AI-tools will generate less valuable input. (NB! As the semester is already in full, adding an exam question that asks students on specific teaching session can be problematic if students’ are not informed about this early in the semester)

By following these tips and guidelines, you can create exam questions that are less vulnerable to cheating with AI tools. It’s important to ensure the integrity of our exams while also creating challenging and relevant questions that help our students learn and succeed.