Students at Staffordshire University said they felt “deprived of knowledge and enjoyment” after discovering the course they wanted to start their digital careers was largely taught by AI.
James and Owen were among 41 students who took a coding module in Staffordshire last year, hoping to change careers through a government-funded apprenticeship program designed to help them become cyber security professionals or software engineers.
But as the AI-generated slides were occasionally read out by an AI voiceover, James said he lost faith in the program and the people running it, and worried he had “used up two years” of his life on a course that was done “in the cheapest way possible.”
“If I submitted something that was generated by an AI, I would be kicked out of the university, but we are being taught by an AI,” James said in a confrontation with an instructor recorded as part of a course in October 2024.
James and other students have had multiple confrontations with university officials over AI materials. However, the university appears to still be using AI-generated materials to teach its courses. This year, the university uploaded a policy statement to its course website justifying the use of AI, laying out a “Framework for Academic Professionals to Leverage AI Automation” in academic activities and teaching.
The university’s public policy restricts the use of AI by students, and says that students who outsource work to AI or pass off work produced by AI as their own violates its integrity policy and could be sued for academic misconduct.
“I’m in the middle of my life, my career,” James said. “I don’t feel like I can leave and restart my career now. I’m stuck on this path.”
The Staffordshire case comes as more universities are using AI tools to guide students, create course materials and provide personalized feedback. A Department of Education policy paper released in August praised this development, saying generative AI “has the power to transform education.” A survey (pdf) of 3,287 higher education faculty members conducted last year by education technology company Jisc found that nearly a quarter use AI tools in their teaching.
For students, AI-powered education appears to be demoralizing rather than transformative. In the US, students post negative reviews online about professors who use AI. In the UK, undergraduate students took to Reddit to complain about instructors copying and pasting feedback from ChatGPT and using AI-generated images in their courses.
“I understand that there is pressure on instructors right now that may force them to use AI, but I am just disappointed,” one student wrote.
James and Owen said they realized “almost immediately” that AI was being used on the Staffordshire course last year. It happened during my first class when the instructor gave a PowerPoint presentation that included an AI version of the audio reading the slides aloud.
Shortly thereafter, they said they noticed signs that some course materials were AI-generated, including inconsistently edited American English to British English, suspicious file names, and “general, surface-level information” that occasionally referred to U.S. law cryptically.
Signs of AI-generated materials continued this year. In one course video uploaded to the website, the narration introducing the material suddenly changed to a Spanish accent for about 30 seconds, then back to a British accent.
The Guardian reviewed the Staffordshire course materials and used two different AI detectors (Winston AI and Originality AI) to scan this year’s course materials. Both found that many assignments and presentations were “very likely to have been generated by AI.”
Ms James said she raised her concerns with student representatives early in the course during a monthly meeting. Then, in late November, it was broadcast during a lecture and included as part of the teaching materials. In the recording, he asks the instructor not to worry about the slides.
“We know that these slides were generated by AI. Everyone in this meeting knows that these slides were generated by AI. We would rather these slides be thrown away,” he says. “I don’t want to receive guidance from GPT.”
Shortly after, the student representative for the course said, “We gave you this feedback, James, and the response was that teachers are allowed to use different tools. We were very frustrated by this response.”
Another student says: “There are some useful things in the presentation, but 5% are useful nuggets and a lot of it is repetitive. There’s some gold at the bottom of this pot. But perhaps we can get the gold ourselves if we ask ChatGPT.”
The lecturer laughs eerily. “I appreciate people being candid…” he says, before turning the topic to another tutorial he created using ChatGPT. “To be honest, I did this on short notice,” he says.
Eventually, the course director told James that he would not be able to get an AI experience in the final session because the material would be reviewed by two human instructors.
In response to questions from the Guardian, Staffordshire University said that “academic standards and learning outcomes were maintained” on the course.
“Staffordshire University supports the responsible and ethical use of digital technologies in line with our guidance. While AI tools may support elements of preparedness, they are not a substitute for academic expertise and must always be used in a way that maintains academic integrity and discipline standards.”
The university brought in a non-AI lecturer for the final lecture of the course, but James and Owen said this was too little, too late, especially since the university also appears to have used AI in this year’s teaching materials.
“I feel like part of my life has been stolen,” James said.
Owen, who is in the midst of a career change, said he chose the course to gain basic knowledge rather than just a qualification, but felt it was a waste of time.
“It’s really frustrating to sit in front of this material that’s not worth anyone’s time when you could be spending your time working on something that actually has value,” he said.
