[Paper Review] Ethical Implications of ChatGPT in Higher Education: A Scoping Review

Ming Li, Ariunaa Enkhtur+2 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Nov 24, 2023

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education8 citations

TL;DR

This scoping review surveys ethical challenges of ChatGPT in higher education across English, Chinese, and Japanese literature, highlighting integrity, assessment, and data protection issues and calling for more empirical policy work.

ABSTRACT

This scoping review explores the ethical challenges of using ChatGPT in higher education. By reviewing recent academic articles in English, Chinese, and Japanese, we aimed to provide a deep dive review and identify gaps in the literature. Drawing on Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) scoping review framework, we defined search terms and identified relevant publications from four databases in the three target languages. The research results showed that the majority of the papers were discussion papers, but there was some early empirical work. The ethical issues highlighted in these works mainly concern academic integrity, assessment issues, and data protection. Given the rapid deployment of generative artificial intelligence, it is imperative for educators to conduct more empirical studies to develop sound ethical policies for its use.

Motivation & Objective

• Survey ethical challenges of using ChatGPT in higher education across languages.
• Identify the main ethical themes and gaps in the literature.
• Map methodological approaches and the balance of discussion versus empirical work.
• Inform policy development for ethical deployment of generative AI in education.

Proposed method

• Apply Arksey and O'Malley’s scoping review framework to define search terms.
• Identify relevant publications from four databases in English, Chinese, and Japanese.
• Extract and synthesize themes on ethics from the literature.
• Classify papers by type (discussion vs. empirical).
• Highlight gaps and propose directions for future empirical research and policy development.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What are the main ethical issues associated with ChatGPT use in higher education across the target languages?
• RQ2 What is the balance between discussion papers and empirical studies in this literature?
• RQ3 What gaps exist in methodological approaches and what policy guidance is needed?
• RQ4 How do issues of academic integrity, assessment, and data protection manifest in current research?
• RQ5 What future research is needed to inform sound ethical policies?

Key findings

• Most papers are discussion-based rather than empirical.
• There is some early empirical work alongside theoretical discussions.
• Ethical issues cluster around academic integrity, assessment, and data protection.
• Rapid deployment of generative AI intensifies the need for empirical studies and policy development.
• Research across languages reveals common themes and literature gaps that hinder policy formation.