Northern Arctic Federal University (SAFU) in Arkhangelsk has allowed students to use artificial intelligence (AI) to write their theses. Lyudmila Morozova, Vice-Rector for Educational Activities, emphasized that the neural network can contribute no more than 40% to the student's work.
SAFU, reacting to new technologies, has introduced new restrictions, despite the existing requirements for the originality of texts. This means that students can use AI within these restrictions, but if the originality of the final work is less than 60%, then during the thesis defense they will have to prove authorship more diligently, and the commission will consider such students "under a magnifying glass."
The Vice-Rector noted that modern technologies have become an integral part of the lives of young people, and the use of neural networks in educational activities has become commonplace.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that students have actively begun to use neural networks in educational activities when writing current control works and when writing graduation works
The decision to allow the use of AI in thesis work was also made because SAFU understands that the capabilities of the neural network are not unlimited, as it can "help write a literature review of the work, an introduction, but so far no artificial intelligence can independently "invent" or take the results of a specific research work from somewhere."
The university also understands that there is currently no ideal tool for checking the originality of texts and identifying the percentage of work done by the neural network, so there will be no harsh penalties either, they will just check knowledge at the defense more scrupulously.
Therefore, he [the student] can decide for himself – either I write it myself and do not "run into" closer attention, or I use a neural network, but I will brilliantly learn what it wrote for me. And for the university, in both cases, the result is achieved – the student successfully defended himself
We can say that SAFU followed the example of colleagues from the Moscow City Pedagogical University (MCPU). There, before September 1, they also decided to allow what they cannot prevent. Students were officially allowed to use artificial intelligence to obtain textual information and data necessary for the preparation of final qualifying works (VKR). However, it is important to note that the borrowed material had to be further analyzed and processed by the students. The MCPU noted that the university is introducing strict rules to prevent direct copying using AI.
