At a glance
Population: Over 4,000 enrolled students across 6 campuses
Location: Pakistan
Motto: “Global in Reach, Local in Access”
Mission: TMUC’s goal for every student is to graduate with an international and transformative multicultural and global competency, whether acquired at home or abroad.
As more institutions look to integrate transformative technologies into their academic frameworks, generative AI emerges as both a promising opportunity and a complex challenge. How can we embrace this innovation without compromising integrity?
Following the 2022 launch of ChatGPT, Amna Salik, Dean of Academics at The Millennium Universal College (TMUC), was quick to see the potential of generative AI. She, along with other TMUC academics, championed its use as a tool to transform education without sacrificing critical thinking and original composition.
Navigating challenges
Drawing a parallel between generative AI and other contemporary learning aids, Amna explains, “ChatGPT is like a new calculator when there were no calculators. We need to adapt and ensure our students make ethical use of these tools.” Inspired by this perspective, TMUC, in line with its forward-thinking ethos, integrated generative AI into their assessment workflow, viewing it as a natural digital progression for the institution.
However, the move sparked concerns among educators who worried that AI writing might disrupt traditional assessment methods, prompting critical questions: “How do we monitor academic integrity? How do we ensure students are actually thinking and putting in their original work?”
The linguistic diversity of the student body further complicated these concerns. While instruction is in English, many of TMUC's students are second-language English speakers. This made it a challenge to distinguish between genuine misunderstandings of what constitutes original writing and potential misconduct.
Clear and transparent policies are essential for reducing uncertainty for students and faculty alike, but the lack of uniformity in AI policies among TMUC’s partner universities made it tough for Amna to promote the fair and consistent use of generative AI among students across different institutions. Most international universities often had different tolerance levels, leading to a "wooly approach”.
Strategies for success
Determined to empower students in independent thinking and original writing while staying true to their innovative vision, TMUC faculty embarked on implementing robust processes that support and regulate the use of generative AI, with faculty reviewing practice during each assessment cycle.
TMUC prioritized creating solutions that were sensitive to linguistic challenges across the student body, ensuring fair assessment and support for all students, regardless of their backgrounds or English-language proficiency.
Rather than adopting a zero-tolerance stance to AI writing, TMUC chose to adapt their teaching and assessment methods as a means to support authentic learning. They integrated Turnitin’s AI writing indicator as a tool for contextualized assessment, which Amna explains as being “about faculty and staff knowing the learner, understanding the skill set, and their capacity to be able to express their ideas.”
By assessing the severity of each potential AI writing ‘case’, educators can determine whether a likely AI writing instance is a result of a student’s language competence or their use of shortcuts. This approach is especially crucial for a student body with mixed abilities and proficiencies, many of whom are second-language English speakers.
The AI writing report has become fundamental to TMUC’s modernized, formative assessment approach. Faculty members provide personalized feedback using the AI writing report to highlight flagged areas and offer tailored guidance. This approach fosters a continuous cycle of improvement while safeguarding academic and integrity standards at TMUC.
Amna emphasizes, “It's about training them, upskilling them, providing them with support so that they feel confident with their academic writing and they don't have to revert to using shortcuts.”
Achieving impact
Turnitin’s AI writing indicator and report quickly demonstrated its value at TMUC. Amna notes that AI writing reports not only help educators identify potentially AI-generated text, “but also supports in how to have those really purposeful conversations with students on what to look at, what to rethink, what to redraft.”
With insights into where and how their students may be using generative AI, Turnitin’s AI writing report, alongside resources like Turnitin’s interactive, multi-resource AI writing puzzle, has empowered educators at TMUC to offer better guidance and support. These tools help design tasks that cultivate students’ original thinking skills and aid in the effective use of generative AI—enhancing the overall learning experience.
"[The AI writing puzzle] includes video links and guidance notes. It has rubrics on how to assess and measure your assessment task. So if you've designed an assessment task, it actually gives you a benchmark to say, ‘Okay, how do I check that? What skill set am I hitting? Am I enabling proficient thinking and the use of AI tools or am I at a risk?’"
TMUC now boasts a growing number of advocates, or "champions," across various programs who actively support the use of generative AI in tandem with Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities. By empowering educators to drive change, these champions have been key in accelerating the adoption of generative AI as a form of learning and fostering a culture of support and collaboration within the institution.
“Long term is that [generative AI] is here to stay,” notes Amna, “we need to make sure that we create awareness among both our students and our faculty, and give them the skill and the aptitude to be able to embrace this.”
Initial hesitation among faculty has significantly diminished, with many now recognizing that generative AI tools can complement and strengthen their teaching.
Implementing Turnitin’s AI writing indicator has increased awareness of the need for original work, encouraging students to use AI for independent thinking and learning. Supported by fair guidelines, this has contributed to a noticeable change in student submission practices, Amna explains. Students have realized that staff can quickly identify AI-generated text via the AI writing detection feature, thus the allure of shortcuts has decreased. TMUC has made significant strides in encouraging students to use generative AI as supportive learning resources that stimulate independent thinking.
To bridge educational practices and policies set by the partner universities, and establish a unified approach to AI writing, TMUC has developed guidelines ensuring clarity and fairness for all students, regardless of their chosen programme of study.
At TMUC, the journey towards integrating generative AI began with TMUC’s CEO and Founder, Dr. Faisal Mushtaq, belief and recognition that, "technology will not replace teachers, but it will certainly replace teachers who do not keep up with developments in technology." This insight drove TMUC to embrace generative AI as a tool to empower students while upholding academic integrity.
With clear insights and guidelines bolstered by Turnitin's AI writing detection capabilities, TMUC now ensures that every student is equipped to thrive.