When a university student gets an assignment in 2025, the first step they will most likely take is to ask an AI chatbot what they are supposed to do. University of Canberra deputy vice-chancellor (academic) Michelle Lincoln remembers the panic at universities when the internet was first introduced. Now the higher education sector is dealing with another seismic shift in the way that information is shared, analysed and presented: generative artificial intelligence (AI). Professor Lincoln sees the parallels between the early days of the internet and the past two years of dealing with generative AI. "As an academic, we were completely freaked out that students would Google things and find out the wrong answer. They wouldn't know ... what websites were trusted and all of that. "And of course, we taught them, had to change and do that. And I actually think this is similar, it's kind of a parallel. And soon it'll become just so ubiquitous that we all just work and live with it and use it in really helpful ways." The University of Canberra, like most Australian universities, has recognised that graduates will need to be able to use various AI platforms in their careers and so it is now an essential part of the curriculum. But the advent of AI has forced the university to consider how it teaches responsible use of the technology without compromising academic integrity. All students at UC do an academic integrity module in their first semester, which covers the appropriate use of AI, plagiarism and cheating. Social sciences tend to be more affected by issues of academic integrity. Academics can no longer rely on some of their assessment formats and now set more oral assessments and ask for drafts of written work so they can see how the final essay was developed. "We are very pro the use of AI, and only in those instances where there is a strong rationale for assessment that doesn't include AI going forward," Professor Lincoln said. At the Australian National University, guiding principles on the use of AI encourage exploration and innovation in the technologies but emphasise the need for students to use them ethically. "We are keen to design learning that equips our students with the knowledge and skills they need to become AI-literate and operate effectively and ethically in an AI-supported world," an ANU spokesman said. "This is why we are teaching our students how to harness the power of AI for assessment in ways that support their learning but do not breach our standards of academic integrity." ANU academics have moved from written assessments to video presentations, real-world case studies and group presentations. Some course convenors have increased the weighting of assessments based on field trips - which would be more difficult to get a chatbot to write about convincingly. The ANU encourages staff and students to use Copilot Enterprise and Adobe Firefly through their university accounts to protect their data. Similarly, the University of Canberra encourages the use of Copilot, Firefly and Dall-E for their work. It is also trialling the University of Sydney's Cogniti tool, which is a chatbot that can be used by education institutions to give more reliable outputs. This year, all UC students are able to use Studiosity Plus. Students can submit their work to be reviewed by the AI-powered platform. Professor Lincoln said it was a much cheaper service than the previous offering which relied on human tutors. "The students get feedback through AI on their writing, but also on their critical thinking. And because it's AI-driven, they can use it as much as they need to, and we've been able to open that up to all of our students to have access to it. So that's a really good thing." PhD students have been warned not to put their original work into commercial chatbots, such as ChatGPT, because this means their intellectual property is no longer their own. Of course, the temptation to have an AI tool write their essays is too tempting for some students. A 2024 survey of more than 8000 students in four Australian universities found four out of five respondents were using AI for their studies. However, half of the respondents did not trust the AI-generated content, 71 per cent believed AI increased cheating and 91 per cent were worried about breaking university rules. Professor Lincoln said her university takes an educative approach when students are caught using AI. If they repeatedly break the rules then they go through a serious misconduct process. Cheats can face penalties like failing a unit or being suspended from the university. UC uses plagiarism detection software Turnitin to help scan student work for AI-generated content. The AI detection feature was turned on last year. This year if a student has a more than 80 per cent match for AI, they will be invited to a "learning validation conversation" with their tutor to check if they actually know what they submitted. The ANU also uses Turnitin to detect plagiarism but has turned off the AI tool because of limitations with the software. Universities now expect any AI-generated content to be correctly referenced in a bibliography, just like any other journal article, website or book. Data from the Turnitin AI writing detection tool showed that in Australia and New Zealand in 2024, 11 per cent of submissions were identified as 20 per cent likelihood of having AI-generated text, up from 7 per cent the previous year. Last year, 3 per cent of submissions were deemed to have an 80 per cent or higher chance of containing AI-written content, up from 2 per cent in 2023. Turnitin Asia Pacific regional vice president James Thorley said students were split into two camps: those who were enthusiastic about AI and others who were concerned about the impact on their learning. "One of the things as well that we've seen consistently is student confusion around where they can and can't use AI," Mr Thorley said. "The more you're confusing the students with that, I think, becomes more problematic." Turnitin has created a new tool, Turnitin Clarity, where students can draft their written work so that teachers can see their drafting process, such as pasted text, typing patterns and draft history. Mr Thorley said the way people think about writing was evolving. He said the the focus would be on ensuring student have fundamental writing skills while using AI to co-author their work. "From an institution point-of-view... this focus on process, you'll see that more and more. Process as opposed to end product." At a time when Canberra's universities are looking to cut their operating costs, various departments are turning to AI to automate their processes. UC uses AI in the first instance to process scholarship applications. Psychologists and doctors have been using AI technologies to transcribe patient interactions and summarise treatment plans on the spot. The university's marketing department has even used AI-generated images of students in advertising. "If you want a diverse student, it's easier to get an amalgamated image of lots of faces instead of identifying somebody," Professor Lincoln said. She said students were happy to receive an automated response to some of their queries, freeing up time for more meaningful face-to-face interactions. "What we want to do is automate and use AI so that we can actually have high-quality in-person interactions with students without doing the things that can be done automatically."