Command and General Staff College Foundation News Spring 2023 - 14

Department of Distance Education
Who loses when students cut corners?
by Col. Eric P. Samaritoni
Director of the Department of Distance Education
eduCaTional inSTiTuTionS, moST employerS, and
ameriCan SoCieTy all frown upon CuTTinG aCademiC
CornerS, aKa CheaTinG. However, there is a growing
industry that not only provides cheating and plagiarism
services, but
social media
Col. Eric P. Samaritoni
Director, DDE
platform through their tutoring aspect, which leads to my
third consideration.
By being labeled as " tutors, " some of these websites
platforms and today's
" influencers " are promoting them at an alarming rate.
There is considerable evidence that this behavior is seeping
into some professional military education (PME) courses
as well. The real question that needs to be asked is, " what
damage is done when a student pays for or receives
someone else's work, or when a past student provides
answers to a current student? "
First, there is the explosion of ChatGPT (Generative Pretrained
Transformer), and similar Artificial Intelligence
(AI) programs designed to answer prompts. ChatGPT
created a lot of news last November when OpenAI launched
a program that provided human-sounding responses to
a general prompt. The academic community around the
world has begun asking questions about what affect this
will have on the learning environment. There are ways to
quickly determine whether a paper is written by AI, but
it is important to note that the program learns and will
improve its ability to write in human style, thus avoiding
detection. That future arrived on March 14, 2023, as GPT-4
was launched, improving the program's ability to not only
write based on prompts but improving its image recognition
capabilities.
Second, there are countless websites filled with past
examinations, quizzes, test prompts, and whole papers
and essays searchable by institution and course. The
Command and General Staff College has not been immune
to a previous year's materials ending up on these types of
websites. While some sites have collections of previously
used
multiple-choice and short-answer exams, others
provide ready-made submissions from current or previous
students. There are also sites that lure people to their
- from page 12
and promotion to colonel exceeds Army averages by a
substantial margin. They provide strategic leaders with
an unequaled resource for grappling with the strategic
opportunities and challenges facing the nation today.
Common to all programs and residing at the very core of
our existence is the imperative to create graduates ready for
the needs of today while intellectually-equipped to deal with
the unknown problems of tomorrow. Whether engaging in a
classroom, conducting a wargame simulation, or leading an
operations planning team, we demand the same intellectual
14 - CGSC FOUNDATION NEWS | www.cgscfoundation.org
rigor and an appreciation of the warfighter's problems.
With a recent trip to the 3rd Infantry Division and
upcoming visits to V Corps and CASCOM, we are actively
engaging in a dialogue with the operational Army and
training base to engage in dialogue, to teach and to learn,
and activate the SAMS network as we continue to maintain
relevance and readiness for our Army. Join us!
Mens est Clavis Victoriae -
the Mind is the Key to Victory!
pay supporters for their contributions. " Tutors " can make
money depending on number of questions answered,
subject category, question difficulty, answer quality, and
other factors.
So what's the real damage to Army students and their
organizations? There is no single answer to this question but
here are some potential implications. Use of these websites
and AI programs can lead to a decline in creative thinking,
as students no longer work through the assigned problems.
Critical thinking skills also decline and potentially vanish,
as students simply copy and paste information into a
document and submit it as their own work. Knowledge
and skills needed for planning and troop leading are lost
to others' work and thoughts. Finally, trust is eroded in
the student, the organization, and in some instances, the
institution.
The Army prides itself on creative and critical thinking
skills. This is achieved through rigorous academic
experiences in the PME opportunities officers and enlisted
Soldiers complete during their careers. When students cut
corners in our classrooms, they aren't missing out on a
section of algebra or social studies, they're missing lessons
than can be critical to leading Soldiers into battle.
There will be an erosion of trust between units, Soldiers,
and the PME institutions if the Army allows academic
misconduct to spread like is currently happening on
university campuses around the country. Leaders should
remind Soldiers who are beginning a PME opportunity
that while society is becoming more passive in enforcing
academic conduct, the Army is not. Students of the Army's
PME system must remember they are building knowledge
and warfighting skills that will be put into action with the
sons, daughters of the nation under their watch.
PHOTO COURTESY ARMYU PAO
http://www.cgscfoundation.org
Command and General Staff College Foundation News Spring 2023

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