AI’s rise prompts university to bring back traditional exams

Students have complained about having to memorise information after traditional exams were reintroduced on their university degree.

Undergraduates at the University of Glasgow were expecting to sit “open-book” exams, which allow students to use notes and are often taken online at home.

But the university said rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) had prompted a swift return to handwritten assessment under exam conditions.

Open-book, online exams were introduced in 2020 due to the pandemic, but a group of life sciences students say they have been given two months’ notice that exams will be reverting back to their traditional format. It will affect students in years three and four of their degrees, who said they had not been given enough time to prepare and had been assured they would sit end-of-year exams online with access to study materials.

Rosie McCrone, a fourth-year microbiology student from Perth, told BBC Scotland News she would be sitting in-person university exams for the first time for her final test before graduation.

“I’ve not felt this anxious since I was a teenager in school,” she said. “Up until now we’ve been tested on the way we format an argument; we’ve never been tested on our ability to recall information. That’s something we are going to need to teach ourselves.”

Another student, Stacey Harris, said: “Everyone’s really stressed because you can’t re-sit the year if you’re in third or fourth year unless you have a medical reason. There was no real indication of when they would go back to in-person [exams]. It’s not even the start of the semester.

“I don’t understand why they didn’t include us in the conversation from the start … They told us to use past papers to study, but the papers for the past four years were for online exams, and before that the course content was different.”

The University of Glasgow said a range of measures had been put in place to support students in their preparations. A spokeswoman added: “The university made the change to invigilated, in-person, hand-written exams in life sciences in response to the rapidly changing capabilities of generative AI tools. Online exams in many scientific disciplines were becoming more susceptible to misuse by these tools.

“We are taking this step so that we can assure all students — together with the quality bodies that accredit degrees, as well as future employers — that the life sciences exams are reliable and the grades awarded are, too.”