Has anyone else done a course with the Skills Network , or does anyone else know about AI filters?

[Forkingannoying]

I spent hours yesterday writing in answers for a course. And three of them have been rejected as "written by AI". For one it says there is a 100% chance it was written by AI. It bloody wasn't! I spent ages writing it!

I have emailed them to query it but it has absolutely put me off studying ever again.

Has anyone experienced this or got any knowledge of it?

Hi I work in AI and it's well known that those AI checkers are completely crap. They throw up false positives and false negatives. To prove a point, I got Chat GPT to write something for me the other day and an AI checker (the "best one in industry") said it was 99% human. The checkers can't keep up with new advances in AI and some of them are just bloody hopeless to start with. Have you got any proof of the process you followed to do the work e.g. screenshots or draft files you can show as evidence that you did the work yourself?

Hi, no, no proof as the answers were written straight into online boxes.
But I got two first class degrees before AI even existed so it wouldn't even cross my mind to cheat like that !

Yes I fully sympathise, the world has gone mad with the AI witch hunt and the tools for "proving" you've used AI are blunt instruments. Can you try slightly re-wording the answers on those questions (maybe throw in some grammatical errors) and see if it will accept those instead?

I just feel like how can I risk any time and energy studying ever again if I can be accused of this when it's not true?

I am disabled and it took a lot of my time and energy to get through the course. But I would never have cheated, it was all my own work every damn word of it. I didn't even google.

I've emailed them to ask in the first place.
It just makes no sense at all to me

I think the problem is that I am really skilled writer, I write for my job. Sorry that sounds arrogant but it's the only explanation I can think of

I dont see that I should have to rewrite my answers, I get your point but that feels like giving in to the game

Ps sorry if my answers came across as grumpy or arrogant. I am just devastated. This was the last module of a course I have been working on for over two months. Alongside a full time job, being a parent and managing a tricky health condition. But I spent every moment yesterday finishing those answers when I wasn't taxiing children to activities. And I was proud of them. And proud I was building my CV

No experience with AI but I am doing a skills network course, they seem pretty reasonable so wait and see what they come back with. Re writing your work seems silly, what would you need to do dumb your self down?

Thanks @onwardsup4 . Its really frustrating. It was the final (8th ) module of the course. I never had it on any of the previous answers. I've messaged them but I expect they won't be around until later in the week.

What frustrated me was that there was no suggestion the AI could have possibly got it wrong. No obvious immediate route for me to challenge the decision. But lots of links to suicide /mental health helplines. The only thing that is harming my mental health is the injustice of being told something was "100% written by AI" when it was 100% written by me.

The shame is, I really enjoyed the course, I learnt a lot and felt glad that despite my disability I had accomplished something. In fact I was actually excitedly searching for the next course to do after I submitted this set of answers yesterday.

Just bumping for the afternoon crowd because I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced this from Skills Network in particular

Update: the course tutor has said I can resubmit the same answers and she will pass them "subject to moderation".

The programme they were using to check was "zerogpt", according to the feedback.

I have also sent a complaint and asked them to revisit how they use AI checkers and also how they feedback to people. I think it was the fact the rejection message read as though they had total faith that I must have cheated that upset me so much. There was no obvious or easy way to be able to say "actually this was all in my own words".

The whole thing has left me incredibly wary of online courses though.

Just to update - I wrote a complaint and have had a very full and detailed apology from a senior person at the Skills Network saying their own processes weren't followed and that there should have been a discussion with me before my work was rejected. They also apologised for the lack of a clear way to challenge the decision and the language and terminology used.

So it sounds like this was a tutor who thought they had a "gotcha" moment and didn't follow due process.

@Forkingannoying Hi there, I know this thread is pretty old now but the exact same thing has happened to me and I'm beside myself about it. I'm a SAHM completing a course on caring for children and young people through the Skills Network. I have a Cambridge BA in modern languages and an MA in translation, awarded many moons ago before AI was even really a thing. This is only a Level 2 course but because I overthink everything and try too hard, I spent bloody hours on my Unit 1 assessment. Two of my answers have come back as being written 100% using AI! Another couple as being written partly by AI. That's just not true! I summarised and synthesised the course materials into my own words. Am I being penalised for my writing style, I wonder? In some cases I chose to use bullet points and numbering, which I know is a common feature of AI generated text. I just thought I was being clear and digestible. The feedback says that Zerogpt was used. It looks as though this is notoriously unreliable...

I've had to wait way longer than the 10 day turnaround to receive any feedback and I had a feeling something wasn't right, but I never dreamt it would be this. Like you, I wrote my answers directly into those stupid online boxes. I don't even have MS Word on my newly acquired laptop so I had no other way of drafting answers anyway. I've drafted an email to the assessor which I'm going to sleep on before I send it. I just feel so angry and stressed. I just wondered if you had any advice on how to approach this?

@AlwaysAnExcuseForEverything I am so sorry you are dealing with this now. It's an absolutely horrible feeling isn't it!

From recollection I wrote an email pointing out that my writing style had been consistent throughout all my answers and that it was inevitably quite a technical and precise writing style due to my career history. I also mentioned that I had obtained numerous qualifications before AI existed.

I also pointed out that there was plenty of research indicating that AI filters have a lot of false positives and that people had successfully sued universities who had erroneously marked their work as being written by AI when it wasn't.

I recall that I was told that actually if my work was seen to be AI I should have been given an opportunity to appeal it as well so it seemed the proper process wasn't followed

I hope the fact that I have now successfully passwd not only that course but a second course with skills network will give you some comfort

Feel free to message again if you are struggling and I can dig out the emails I had at the time and see what else I can find to help you.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to me last night. Your helpful, empathetic words are greatly appreciated. I am very glad to hear that you went on to pass two online courses after that absolute slap in the face!

After all my talk on sleeping on it, I ended up emailing the assessor at gone 1am. I cited some articles about ZeroGPT being notorious for flagging a large number of false positives. I also ran my work through another AI detector, GPTZero. It was "highly confident" that the text had been written by a human (100% confident in most cases, 99% confident in one case). I attached screenshots of the results.

I demanded that he escalate this to someone senior and said I won't be doing any further work until it's resolved. It's already taken up so much time and energy. Need to try to put it to the back of my mind and focus on having a nice half term with my kids.

Thanks again for your support!

I really hope they come back to you quickly and can get this sorted for you. I remember the just awful feeling of being accused of something and not knowing how I could possibly prove I hadn't done it, so I will be thinking of you!

Hopefully my positive outcome will give you some hope while you wait