South Korean universities face ‘widespread cheating’ after AI exam scandals
Seoul National and Yonsei universities face new cheating scandals despite tighter controls, signalling need for stronger online exam and AI rules
According to Seoul National University, on Sunday, the results of a final exam for a general education course offered by its College of Natural Sciences were invalidated after signs of cheating were detected among nearly half of the 36 students enrolled.
The course was an online distance-learning class designed for students on leave for mandatory military service, with both lectures and exams conducted remotely.
To prevent misconduct, the exam system was set to record activity whenever test-takers opened any windows other than the exam screen. A subsequent review by a teaching assistant later found such logs for nearly half of the students, leading the university to invalidate the exam results.
However, it has been difficult to conclusively establish misconduct because the logs do not indicate which screens were accessed. As a result, the professor overseeing the course invalidated the exam results and assigned alternative coursework, rather than imposing disciplinary penalties on students.
The professor noted that while definitive proof was lacking, the scale of the suspicious activity strongly hinted at academic misconduct.