Office for Students says institutions in England should return to traditional exams and in-person presentations

Universities should go back to traditional exams and in-person presentations to grade students after lecturers complained that AI has made it “close to impossible” to assess coursework, according to an investigation by England’s higher education regulator.

The Office for Students (OfS) said the credibility of degrees from England’s universities was under threat from the prolific use of AI in essays, dissertations and “open book” exams, with students reporting that their peers boasted of using AI undetected by staff.

The regulator warned universities and other higher education institutions that failing to design “valid and reliable measures of students’ knowledge and skills” to combat AI could breach their conditions of registration and lead to sanctions being imposed.

Josh Fleming, the director of strategy and delivery at the OfS, said AI use in higher education “presents a generational risk to the system as it stands, threatening to undermine students’ learning and institutions’ ability to assess them”.

Fleming added: “We need to see far greater efforts to tackle these risks, including far greater use of AI-free assessment.

“The scale and pace of both the challenge and opportunity presents a novel challenge for the sector and us as the regulator. We will continue to work with universities and colleges to help them reap the benefits of AI while avoiding the risks.”

The OfS said many institutions had already redesigned how they assessed students to reduce potential AI misuse, including greater use of in-person written exams or oral examinations known as vivas.

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