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How Do Professors Check for AI?

How do professors check for AI? Learn why they check and some of the most common strategies they use here.

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has certainly been making its mark in education, with 46.9% of college students using the technology in their studies. 

However, not all professors are on board with using AI for coursework, especially when it's used to generate entire assignments.

To help address this issue, professors have started looking for AI writing in coursework. 

So, how do professors check for AI? Well, that depends on a variety of factors, including educational institution policies for AI detection and preferences.

Read on to discover why professors check for AI in assignments and the different strategies they may use to detect it.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

  • Professors check for AI in assignments for various reasons.
    • Preventing cheating.
    • Avoiding unfair advantages in assignment completion.
    • Properly assessing a student’s understanding of course material.
  • How professors check for AI may include a variety of methods (depending on college and university policies around AI detection), including:
    • Looking for inaccurate or fake references and sources in assignments.
    • Significant changes in student writing style from previous work.
    • Professors may generate their own AI-written assignments for comparison. 
    • Discuss with students how and if AI was used, such as editing. 
    • Use AI content detectors to determine the likelihood of AI use in assignments.

Why Do Professors Check for AI in Assignments?

There are three main reasons why professors check for AI in assignments:

  • To detect and discourage cheating. With the right prompt, generative AI tools like ChatGPT can write entire essays. Students may then try to pass off these AI-generated essays as their original work, which many see as cheating.
  • To level the playing field. Students with access to advanced AI tools may use them to create more high-quality assignments than those without.
  • To accurately assess a student’s abilities. It’s hard for a professor to assess a student’s understanding of the material if a chatbot is providing the answers for them.

How Do Professors Check for AI?

AI content is difficult for humans to identify, so professors may use a combination of strategies to check for AI in student work.

Check references

A good, well-researched paper often has plenty of references to support its claims. However, when ChatGPT cites its sources, they aren’t always accurate.

One study found that out of 115 references generated by ChatGPT, just 7% were real and accurate. Because of AI hallucinations like this, professors may verify the authenticity of sources in a student’s reference list if they suspect an AI-generated paper.

Make comparisons to previous work…

You won’t often see two papers written exactly the same way. Each student has a unique writing style, and professors may use this to help them identify AI-generated content.

However, there are a few additional considerations with this approach.

  • If a professor is unfamiliar with a particular student’s work, they may not recognize changes in writing style (such as that beginning of a term).
  • Large class sizes may mean that multiple educators and educational assistants are evaluating papers and don’t become as familiar with each student’s writing style.
  • If instructors notice a complete or sudden shift in style, it doesn’t necessarily mean that AI was used. The student could have a writing style that’s simply inconsistent.

…and AI-generated text

Using generative AI tools isn’t specific to students — professors are also often familiar with it.

They could use ChatGPT to create one or even multiple versions of an essay based on their specific essay guidelines and then compare the outputs to student assignments.

However, as with comparing writing styles, there are issues with this method. AI tools don’t often produce the same output when provided with the same prompt. So, it’s unlikely to provide an obvious example of AI use.

Ask questions

Sometimes, professors check for AI by having a conversation with students and asking questions such as:

  • How did you plan the assignment? Can you share rough notes, outlines, or drafts?
  • Where did you get the ideas for your thesis?
  • What sources did you use? Can you share how you researched them? 
  • Did you use AI when working on the assignment, such as for editing? Can you share an example?

Being able to provide rough notes, drafts, brainstorming, a list of sources, and clarity on any AI tools incorporated, such as for editing grammar or spelling, can help to communicate the authenticity of work.

Additionally, students may demonstrate the writing process from beginning to end if they write in Google Docs and use the Originality.ai Chrome Extension.

Use AI content detectors

Only about 25% of teachers feel very effective at distinguishing between AI and student-written assignments. 

Though AI detection policies for assignments can vary by college or university, where it’s part of policies, some professors may use an AI content detector as well.

The technology behind how an AI detector works is complex, with advanced algorithms and machine learning playing key roles. However, using an AI detector like Originality.ai to scan for AI content is easy and intuitive.

According to several third-party academic and research studies, Originality.ai demonstrates exceptional accuracy in AI detection. However, false positives are possible, so an AI detector shouldn’t be the only method for establishing academic standing.

Learn more about Originality.ai for educators.

Final Thoughts

As AI content continues to rise, professors, educators, and students must establish clear communication around AI in assignments and work together to navigate it properly. AI detectors for educators are a key way to improve transparency about AI content in the classroom.

Additionally, tools like the Originality.ai Chrome Extension are a fantastic way to demonstrate the authenticity of work by visualizing the writing process from beginning to end. 

Jess Sawyer

Jess Sawyer is a seasoned writer and content marketing expert with a passion for crafting engaging and SEO-optimized content. With several years of experience in the digital marketing, Jess has honed her skills in creating content that not only captivates audiences but also ranks high on search engine results.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to fill out the entire form?

No, that’s one of the benefits, only fill out the areas which you think will be relevant to the prompts you require.

Why is the English so poor for some prompts?

When making the tool we had to make each prompt as general as possible to be able to include every kind of input. Not to worry though ChatGPT is smart and will still understand the prompt.

In The Press

Originality.ai has been featured for its accurate ability to detect GPT-3, Chat GPT and GPT-4 generated content. See some of the coverage below…

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Featured by Leading Publications

Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

Vahan Petrosyan

searchenginejournal.com

I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

Tom Demers

searchengineland.com

After extensive research and testing, we determined Originality.ai to be the most accurate technology.

Rock Content Team

rockcontent.com

Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

ranktracker.com

ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

Ashley Stahl

forbes.com

Originality.ai Do give them a shot! 

Sri Krishna

venturebeat.com

For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

Industry Trends

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

Software License Agreement

Copyright © 2023, Originality.ai

All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

  1. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Will My Data Be Shared?

This table below shows a heat map of features on other sites compared to ours as you can see we almost have greens across the board!

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