{"id":23178,"date":"2025-05-08T07:45:28","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T21:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/?p=23178"},"modified":"2025-05-08T23:29:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T13:29:16","slug":"making-peace-with-ai-chatgpt-integrated-assessments-in-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/making-peace-with-ai-chatgpt-integrated-assessments-in-economics\/","title":{"rendered":"Making Peace with AI – ChatGPT-Integrated Assessments in Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

The University of Sydney is leading the way in embracing Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) in education, particularly in assessment. Starting Semester 2, 2025, a\u00a0two-lane approach<\/a>\u00a0will be introduced: Lane 1 (“secure”) assessments requiring in-person attendance with GAI prohibited, and Lane 2 (“open”) assessments where students can use GAI tools. This approach aims to balance assessment integrity concerns while preparing students with the GAI literacy that employers increasingly expect.<\/p>\n

Motivated by these rapid developments in GAI and the pedagogical challenges they present, we share our experience implementing two GAI-integrated assessments in the School of Economics during 2023 and 2024.<\/p>\n

This article was a collaboration of academics from the School of Economics: A\/Prof. Mark Melatos (Assessment Program Director, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Unit Coordinator, ECON1002, S1-2023), Dr. Chandana Maitra (Unit Coordinator, ECON7030) and Dr. Jordi Vidal Robert (Unit Coordinator, ECON1002, S1-2024)<\/em><\/p>\n

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We designed our assessments for two distinctly different student cohorts, including large numbers of international students: ECON1002 (a first-year undergraduate economics unit with approximately 1,000 students per semester) and ECON7030 (a Master of Economics postgraduate capstone with around 200 students per semester). Despite the different academic levels, our approach in both units centred on\u00a0AI-Human collaboration<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0– requiring students to critically evaluate GAI-generated content before enhancing it with their own insights. Students learned to craft thoughtful prompts, critically assess GAI outputs, and recognise the tool’s limitations, applying their academic knowledge to overcome these constraints.<\/p>\n

Responding to educational challenges<\/h2>\n

In ECON1002, one of the key assessments has traditionally been a structured essay (worth 30%) run as an in-person exam. The move to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the emergence of ChatGPT, created insurmountable challenges for this assessment. For example, even post-Pandemic (S1 2023) in-person mid-term exams were not permitted for some classes, with many students still studying remotely.<\/p>\n

In response to this new reality, an alternative writing task was needed that would:<\/p>\n