WWETB Quality Team: Safeguarding the Authenticity of the FET Assessment Process

 

Generative Artificial Intelligence marks a new frontier in the technological tools now available to all members of our society who have the wherewithal to access it. As with any frontier, there prevails both a sense of opportunity and vulnerability. In the realm of education, one of the challenges associated with learner use of generative AI centres around the safeguarding of the authenticity of the assessment process. There is a delicate balance to be struck between empowering learners to ethically use such a sophisticated technological tool, and ensuring learners continue to develop their own natural skills for analysis, critical-thinking and reflection. As educators, we can’t afford to get this wrong. To do so jeopardises not only the veracity of our programmes and awards, but also the future of our learners in a world where discernment, responsibility and real understanding have become more important than ever.

WWETB FET appreciates that establishing best practice approaches to ethical use of generative AI constitutes a learning process and the relative newness of the technology means that there is much for us still to learn. The WWETB Quality Team have developed a new procedure for ‘Safeguarding the Authenticity of the Assessment Process’ in response to the advent of widely available generative AI tools, to guide WWETB practitioners and learners in this new technological landscape. The procedures span the life-cycle of a course and consists of six key elements:

  1. Information
  2. Authentic Assessment
  3. Assessment Briefing
  4. Plagiarism & AI Detection
  5. Courageous Conversations
  6. Assessment Malpractice Procedures

 

The WWETB Quality Team hope that these newly developed procedures will prove effective in responding to the opportunities and challenges associated with learner use of generative AI, particularly in the context of authentically assessing learner knowledge, skills, competencies and learning. We proudly acknowledge National Academic Integrity Week 2024 on the back of our recent development of our procedures for ‘Safeguarding the Authenticity of WWETB FET Assessment’.