NTU fails 3 students for GenAI usage, students say they didn't cheat & dispute label of academic fraud

Three students from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) were failed over generative AI (GenAI) usage in an assignment.

However, the students denied that they cheated with GenAI.

They in turn said the school had "falsely accused" them of having faked their work, when they did not.

They also alleged that the professor — Sabrina Luk from the School of Social Sciences — had made her accusations based on "biased judgments".

The first allegation

Two affected students, A and B, spoke to Mothership about the events that transpired.

The course in question was HA4040/HA3026 (Health, Disease Outbreaks and Politics).

A, 22, explained that she had made three citation mistakes and typos in the essay's bibliography.

She also used a citation sorter — an online tool that organises academic references in alphabetical order.

But Luk allegedly said that A's usage of the citation sorter was a form of AI use, and flagged her errors as being AI-generated.

She then gave A a zero mark and penalised her for "academic fraud".

Mothership understands that this goes on a student's permanent record.

"To call it a false work because of a genuine typo....is a misrepresentation. Especially when undergraduates mess up citations all the time," A said.

A said that she emailed multiple higher-ups, including the dean and the head of student services, to appeal the decision.

She also submitted all her essay drafts and her Google Docs version history, to show that she had written the essay "from scratch" — but to no avail.

"My grades have dropped and now future employees will see me as an academic fraud, over something I did not do."

In a post on Reddit, A said that she even went for her Member of Parliament's Meet the People session, but has not received any updates from the volunteer who took down her case.

She noted that the incident highlighted "the sheer amount of bureaucracy and the [university's] lack of proper guidelines surrounding such an important new piece of technology."

The second allegation

B had a similar experience.

The 21-year-old student was accused of two citation-related errors — one "fake statistic", and "false citations" due to her bibliography, which she formatted using ChatGPT.

The "fake statistic" referred to a general Covid-19 case estimate which is publicly verifiable from World Health Organisation (WHO) data, she said.

She had also only used AI to format the bibliography, not to write the essay content, and she had "voluntarily disclosed" this.

Using online tools to format and organise bibliographies is a common practice among students.

Like A, B was found guilty of academic fraud and given a zero mark for the paper.

Despite appealing the decision, she was allegedly "screamed at during the initial hearing, denied a genuine chance to present my side, and then ignored".

In an appeal letter seen by Mothership, B explained that she "does not dispute the fact that [she] was negligent" in overlooking the errors.

"What I am pleading for is reconsideration of the label of academic fraud — a label that does not align with the nature of my mistake, nor my intent.

There was no fabrication, no outsourcing, no attempt to deceive. The issue was a lapse in judgment, not a violation of integrity."

She added that the label of "academic fraud" would mean potential employers might "disqualify [her] without question".

NTU's response

In response to Mothership's queries, a spokesperson from NTU's School of Social Sciences said that they investigated three students for "non-existent citations in their assignments" in April.

"The students were given the opportunity to present their case during a formal review.

In all three cases, the submitted work was found to contain references, links or statistics that do not exist. Two students admitted to having used generative AI (Gen AI), while the third stated being unaware that the tool used — which advertises itself online as an essay writing service — was a Gen AI tool."

The instructor had "explicitly prohibited" the use of AI tools for written assignments in the course and warned that GenAI use would result in a zero mark.

The spokesperson added that citing non-existent sources constitutes a "serious form of academic misconduct".

Both students that Mothership spoke to denied that they cited non-existent sources.

Aside from using AI to sort their citations, "all three of us just had typos, which we explained to the school," A said.

They also denied that they were given a fair chance to present their cases.

A said that Luk "shut down [her] attempts during the hearing, saying 'there'll be no negotiation'."

B also claimed that during the hearing, which was held via Zoom, Luk "literally screamed at [her] and attacked [her] character".

It "felt like a debate where the prof was trying to push her aversion to AI onto me, rather than discuss the substantial facts of my case", she said.

"The screaming and shouting in the first meeting, and the lack of any real response by the appeal professor. Where is the due process?"

Mothership has reached out to Luk for comment.

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