College Professors Are Turning to an OId-School Product From a Family-Owned Business to Combat AI Cheating Sales of the product have increased by up to 80% at universities across the country.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Jessica Thomas
Key Takeaways
- College professors are increasingly using blue books to ensure that students submit their own handwritten work under supervision, not AI-generated essays.
- Blue books are exam booklets with a blue cover and blank, lined pages.
- Blue book sales were up at universities across the country.
As college students use ChatGPT to complete take-home tests, finish homework and write essays, professors are using blue books, or inexpensive, stapled exam booklets with a blue cover and lightly lined pages, to ChatGPT-proof the classroom.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that demand is up for blue books, which cost 23 cents apiece in campus bookstores and were first introduced in the late 1920s.
Blue book sales were up more than 30% at Texas A&M University, nearly 50% at the University of Florida and 80% at the University of California, Berkeley, over the past two years, the Journal found.
Roaring Spring Paper Products, the family-owned business that manufactures most blue books, told the Journal that sales have picked up over the past few years due to AI use, as professors use the old-school books to conduct in-person exams in a classroom setting. The advantage of blue books is that students can't use ChatGPT and have to instead write their essays by hand under a professor's supervision.
Kevin Elliott, a Yale University lecturer in the ethics, politics and economics program, told WSJ that he switched from at-home essays to blue books in the spring semester when he realized students were using AI to write their assignments. He found that a few take-home papers included made-up quotes from famous philosophers, a clear sign of AI use.
Elliott implemented a new system where students had to write essays in blue books for their final, and it worked so well that he plans to continue using blue books for the next academic year.
Most college leaders think AI tools have led to widespread cheating. A survey released in January from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and Elon University found that the majority of university leaders (59%) report that cheating has increased on their campuses since AI tools have become widely available. More than half of these leaders believe that their faculty cannot tell the difference between AI-generated work and student-written papers.
Meanwhile, a January 2023 survey from Study.com of over 100 educators and 1,000 students found that nearly 90% of college students had used ChatGPT to complete a homework assignment, 53% had it write an essay and 48% had used it for an at-home test or quiz. More than 70% of college professors expressed concern about how ChatGPT could be used to cheat on assignments.
Related: Hiring Managers Want Workers With ChatGPT Experience, New Survey Says
Still, some professors who restrict ChatGPT use through blue book exams admit that students could benefit from knowing how to use the tool to be more productive when they graduate.
Arthur Spirling, a Princeton University professor of politics, told WSJ that although he gives proctored blue book exams, he thinks it is a "strange" situation to limit ChatGPT use in the classroom when students will be able to tap into it when they begin working full-time.
"It is strange to say you won't be permitted to do this thing that will be very natural to you for the rest of your career," he told the outlet.
ChatGPT had 500 million global weekly users as of April, up from 400 million weekly users in February.
