Hallucinated reference checker
I am increasingly seeing hallucinated references in submitted work, and spotting these is becoming one of the threshold factors in determining whether AI may have been used inappropriately. I'm spending more and more time manually checking the existence of references, yet this seems like a task that could be automated. Are there any plans to include such a check within Turnitin?
2 replies
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Hi This is a great question and unfortunately not one that I am prepared to answer. Our community manager is on PTO, so I wanted to acknowledge your question and let you know that I'm sharing this with them so they can respond on their return.
~K -
I think there's a huge challenge in this, as TII would essentially have to know every single reference & referencing style that exists.
My advise to staff is to set TII to include the references - and then as a grader look at the un-highlighted ones.
There are a number of possible reasons for that:- Student has referenced something that probably shouldn't have (e.g. news report) - though it might be fully expected in the assessment - you're the one who knows what you set.
- Student has invented their own, unique & quirky referencing style.
- Student is the first person to reference the item (unlikely, especially in lower years of a degree, possibly if they're doing a PhD)
- The references doesn't really exist ...
Increasingly the latter could indicate a potential use of GenAI, so I'd see it as a way to just start to consider if you want to investigate further. Of course, sometimes AI generates the same reference for >1 user, there are also feelings that it hallucinates less than it used to, etc. However, ti's a start (and, it also leans into the discussion about the nature of assessment anyway, but that's a different question)