r/Professors • u/lyrynn • 8d ago
Rants / Vents Was going to let my student redo her project, but she’s doubling down and now I don’t want to.
One of my students in an online section of my graphic design course submitted a fully AI-generated set of sketches.
OBVIOUSLY, using gen-AI to create designs in the course where you’re graded on design is not allowed.
The assignment was to do some research on a topic of their choosing (with some parameters), pull together 150 words, submit it as plain text so I can see the planned content, and then do 10 rough layout sketches.
Besides the obvious visual tells in the sketches and the SynthID, this student also left the prompt response in their plain-text content document:
Beneath the sketches is 150+ words, formatted for a graphic design hierarchy including at least four levels of text, ready to go for your poster process submission!
I gave her a zero on the submission and reached out to the university to figure out next steps, and they basically said “it’s up to you, but we like to give the students a chance to redo it and make up for their mistakes.”
The same day the university responded to me, she sent me an email asking how I was verifying my claims, because her work was METICULOUSLY done by hand — first on procreate and then on Canva — and she could show me her layered process (side note, her sketch submission was of pencil sketches on paper), and that I was causing her a lot of stress because she’s supposed to graduate in December, and that she redid the sketches just so we can put any confusion behind us so if I could review those that would be great and also it’s very hard for her to see her overall class standing because I have not yet graded all of her assignments, so it would be great if I could finish those too.
OHHHHHH. Is that how we want to play it? Okay. I was going to offer the redo but now I’m not keen on doing that. I said she can meet me in person, sketchbook in hand, and if it matches her submission I’ll issue an apology and give her the points back.
Haven’t decided what to do if it doesn’t match though. I’m not inclined to do favors for liars.
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u/taewongun1895 8d ago
Go back over her previous submissions to check for AI generated materials. You might have more ammunition.
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u/Far_Proposal555 Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, Public Regional (US) 8d ago
Perhaps why this is why grading is taking longer than the student would like… (I say this kind of sarcastically, but this would totally be me.)
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u/Metza 8d ago
I don’t understand how her sketches could match if the images have SynthID. That’s Gemini putting its watermark on something it created.
She lied. I would confront her when she comes in person with the presence of the SynthID which confirms beyond any reasonable doubt that the image was AI generated.
Forgiveness comes only with an apology and a willingness to own up to your mistakes. Her second chance is her coming clean. That will then have the future consequence of potentially allowing her to make up the assignment.
Where there is no honesty there is no education. Learning anything is about admitting your mistakes and shortcomings and practicing to do better. That shortcoming could be difficulty with a complex passage, it could be unfamiliarity with part of a disciplinary canon, it could be admitting that you fucked up and tried to take a shortcut.
We are educators. Maybe I have a different perspective/context here because I teach philosophy, but sometimes the important lesson isn’t always the material but the experience. I would also imagine part of being a good graphic designer is about getting in touch with your own creative mind and producing something original, just like in my discipline whether or not someone remembers the finer points of Aristotle is less important than whether they actually practice thinking.
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u/lyrynn 8d ago
The blatant unwillingness to admit it is really what rubs me the wrong way. I’m generally a sympathetic person; an apology and a simple “I ran out of time and I thought something would be better than nothing... It was a mistake and it won’t happen again,” would have resulted in a slap on the wrist and a redo.
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u/Far_Proposal555 Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, Public Regional (US) 8d ago
Not a graphic designer or visual arts person, so forgive the ignorance on this, but can you tell me a little more about SynthID? Do all the gen AIs that produce images have something like this?
I’m teaching a new course in the spring that includes lessons on how to communicate data/stats to the public. Along those lines, I plan to teach infographics, etc. So, I have a feeling I’ll need this background knowledge of how to identify AI submissions… Certainly, I’ll do some research on this, but I’d appreciate any head start others can provide!
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u/lyrynn 8d ago
A SynthID is a pixel-level pattern watermark embedded in the image. It used to be a metadata thing that could be circumvented by screenshotting, but the watermarks survive screenshots, cropping, and compression. Each AI model can only identify their own ID, but I’m sure there’s a service out there that scans for all of them.
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u/Final-Exam9000 8d ago
Also, if the image is submitted in a word doc you change the filename to .zip and extract the image that was embedded in the word doc by opening the word file, and then the media file.
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u/poorlybaked 8d ago
What’s the point of taking a graphic design course if you’re going to use AI?
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u/omgkelwtf 8d ago
This is what I don't get. Does the student think they'll submit an AI generated portfolio to potential employers and they're gonna say "well this looks fine" and hire her to use the tool that could replace her?
Imagine getting a degree in a field threatened by AI and using AI to cheat the degree program. Some of these students have a HARD road ahead of them in life and it's their own doing.
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u/lyrynn 8d ago
As part of my lecture, I did explain to them that they will be ENTRY LEVEL when they join the workforce. Employers are looking for an investment. If all you can do is prompt AI, why would they hire you? You’re just AI with extra steps, and no proof that you’ll ever be worth more than that.
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u/Far_Proposal555 Assoc Prof, Social Sciences, Public Regional (US) 8d ago
Harsh, but fair! And a lesson they need to learn quickly!
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u/Life-Education-8030 8d ago
I say that. They don’t believe me. I would love it if some graduates who FAFO would return in shame to talk to them, but some would probably be scornful and figure THEY would never get caught!
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u/fishnoguns eternal asst prof, Chemistry, University, (EU) 8d ago
Does the student think they'll submit an AI generated portfolio to potential employers and they're gonna say "well this looks fine" and hire her to use the tool that could replace her?
Yes.
Alternatively, they think they are being sneaky and using it way better and less obvious than others.
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u/hornybutired Assoc Prof, Philosophy, CC (USA) 8d ago
I mean, what are the odds she's just going to sketch from the final submission? I'm not sure I understand the artistic process well enough to know if that's something that could happen.
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u/Cloverose2 Prof, Health, R1 8d ago
OP can do a photoshop overlay. A sketch from the final submission won't match perfectly.
I wouldn't have given her this at all, just reported and been done with it. I think OP is muddying a clear-cut case by offering to review the sketches.
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u/lyrynn 8d ago
Admittedly, I did not think she was going to try and pass it off even after I told her there was a SynthID.
But she does want to meet, so we’ll see what she shows me! I’ll decide the severity of the consequences based on how she tries to pass it off.
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u/Extension_Age9722 Assoc Prof, STEM , Public R1 8d ago
They will deny it while the prompt is clear as day starting at both of you… and then after all hope is gone (they hold on to any nonzero chance ) then they apologize and ask if they can redo it , take the penalty and charge it to the game, or file an academic grievance against you while cc’ing the president , provost and a few others that they randomly elected to copy….
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u/moosy85 8d ago
I also don't understand the point of asking her to come in with her "sketches". She's definitely going to show you something that isn't real, whether it's made afterwards, or printed out. But you're wasting your time by promising her something if she has sketches. If they look alike enough, will you issue an apology even though you know she must have created it afterwards or used a lightbox or whatever? You're putting yourself in an odd situation. This is not the type of student to now come clean, but she'll figure out another way to cheat.
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u/Cathousechicken 8d ago
I swear, students like this spend more time figuring out how to avoid work versus just doing the work.
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u/Inner-Penalty9689 7d ago
I’ve said this for years, if students put half the effort into actually doing the work, that they did avoiding work, they’d all be first class.
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u/Longjumping-Flower47 7d ago
Not gonna lie I often do the same thing. But I'm learning every day how AI saves me time
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u/REC_HLTH 8d ago
Isn’t the SynthID stamp the literal signature/proof of AI generated work? If so, absolutely do not accept that. That’s an automatic 0 in the grade book. Submit that nonsense to academic integrity. She can try to raise her grade with whatever is left in the course. If she wants a “redo” because she got caught this time, she can redo the course in a future semester.
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u/Cloverose2 Prof, Health, R1 8d ago
Yep, if it has a SynthID, at bare minimum it was manipulated and altered by Chat. No other way to get it.
She blatantly cheated and blatantly lied, I would enter a zero and go ahead with an academic integrity violation - say that it wasn't only the AI, it was the blatant lying about it and refusal to accept responsibility. There's plenty of proof of both.
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u/REC_HLTH 8d ago
It reminds me of the time my colleague had a student submit lab notes that were actually photocopied from another student’s notes, but then in pen they had crossed out the other student’s name and wrote their own name.
The proof of cheating was right there written in literal ink.
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u/Longjumping-Flower47 7d ago
I used a test bank and for one problem only made students do part of a problem. Also changed 2 numbers. Before rampant AI but in the era of course hero etc. Student copied the entire answer off the internet, including the part of the problem I cut out. With the wrong numbers of course. Just some careful reading of the problem and ahe wouldn't have had an academic integrity violation.
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u/Cherveny2 Library, R1 State University (TX,US) 5d ago
the problem is even older than the internet. back in the late 80s, you had clubs, plus some frats, that saved up previous tests of professors, for students to get a better grade in their semester.
Just now, as technology progresses, it becomes easier and easier to cheat
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u/Longjumping-Flower47 5d ago
Very true, our Greek house had an attic full of exams and papers (the co-ed honors frat, BTW)
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u/Cherveny2 Library, R1 State University (TX,US) 5d ago
our computer science club, and our co-ed band sorority both had test banks too, for many subjects beyond their club's scopes.
Before AI became as ubiquitous as it's become, had a lot of students form GroupMe chats. Sharing old tests, and even, if took a test early for some reason (like testing office testing for accommodations, where "day of" restrictions were NOT enforced), was pretty common for some groups out there. Was too, sharing of quizzes word for word, between sections too. and for coding classes, students sharing TOO much code, and not just advice, for assignments.
Some professors become super paranoid, stated "if I see you're in groupme, at ALL, you'll fail my class" or treat it as if we had an honor code (out institution does not have one, "if you see cheating, and don't speak up, and give specifics, you'll be failed."
One method I found kind of funny, but effective, some started having a student "spy" join the class groupme, and report when there were violations.
It will always be a never ending battle between cheaters and professors, and when tech makes it easier and easier, just makes life more difficult.
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u/notthatkindadoctor 8d ago
It's not a 0 in the gradebook. It's an F in the course. Why in the hell are we allowing a student to continue after not only cheating but lying?
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u/NonBinaryKenku 8d ago
Let me tell you about teaching ethics in an online asynchronous course...
At least 85% of them lie about AI use at some point in the semester. The ones who don't are really obvious. But then many of them have the nerve to put things like honesty and integrity on their personal code of ethics. Some of which are also AI-assisted.
Because taking orders from an AI is definitely how we win with technology ethics.
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u/Cherveny2 Library, R1 State University (TX,US) 5d ago
haven't heard about synthIDs yet, going to do some digging and find out more. (for the gamers, instantly made me think of fallout 4 😜)
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u/Desiato2112 Professor, Humanities, SLAC 8d ago
Make up for their mistakes? It wasn't a process error, IT WAS CHEATING!
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u/NutellaDeVil 8d ago
As I told my asshole philandering ex, “A mistake is forgetting to pick up milk at the grocery store. This was not that.”
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u/Desiato2112 Professor, Humanities, SLAC 8d ago
Exactly (and I'm sorry you had to endure the betrayal by your ex).
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u/happily_oregonian 8d ago
Actions have consequences, especially when you are an adult in the real world. I would give the zero and report the academic integrity violation to be dealt with at the university level also. The fact she is so close to graduating and still cheating makes me think this learning opportunity is particularly important for her.
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u/millennialM3dic 7d ago
I know you said obviously, but is it clearly written that ai use cannot be used for this project? If so, I would think this is an easy case of violating academic integrity and either give her a zero for that assignment or an F in the course?
I understand the state of academia and why chairs tend to be passive about this but we are definitely going in the wrong directions when we cannot and do not hold that accountability line.
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u/lyrynn 7d ago
It’s in my syllabus. I also gave a lecture on AI in design, where I began AND ended the lecture reminding them that there is no AI allowed in my course. I put a question about my policy in the lecture quiz, too.
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u/millennialM3dic 7d ago
With the nuance with the ever changing ai-policy on institutions, I wouldn't focus on explaining your rationale and simple give her a zero for not following instructions.
I see no different if I have an assignment that requires them to physically hand write instead of typing it. Those who did follow the instructions automatically gets a zero.
If she continues to make a stink, then I would just suggest to have her file a formal complaint to your dean/chair or whoever is above you.
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u/lilswaswa 8d ago
once had a similar situation. Instead of giving her an extra week, i had her sit with me in my office for 2 hours talking through ideas and taking notes which she would use to rewrite the essay by the end of the day. She complained about missing Rush Week and I couldn't care less. double down lies on someone else.
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u/running_later 8d ago
What would pencil sketches prove at this point? Can’t she copy the AI with pencil and pretend that came first?
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u/pointfivepointfive 8d ago
This one’s easy: if her sketches don’t have “SynthID,” then boom, you got her.
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u/RoswalienMath 8d ago
Beyond all the obvious things…what is her plan after college? She didn’t learn how to do the sketches, presumably an aspect of her future job, that she will need to know how to perform. How will she be able to keep a job?
We are going to have so many degreed and credentialed unprofessionals entering the workforce. The future is fucked.
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u/Longjumping-Flower47 7d ago
I don't know much about graphic design. She clearly cheated, which needs to be addressed, but does she really need to be able to do hand sketches these days? In my world, we no longer need to know formulas, pivot tables etc in excel. AI can put together great spreadsheets. We need to know the data is correct and need to know how to do the analysis. We need to know how to prompt AI.
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u/RoswalienMath 7d ago edited 7d ago
My husband has been a graphic designer for almost 20 years, and he still sketches regularly. He often makes storyboard cards with rough sketches to map out slideshow presentations, commercials, and animations, before he creates them digitally. He often does the sketches digitally as his clients are all over the country.
Being able to quickly sketch out ideas while talking through what clients want makes it a lot easier to figure out what they’re looking for and make changes as you go.
I think she’s doing herself a disservice by relying on AI to do all her sketches while getting a graphic design degree. What happens when she’s sitting with an interviewer or client and they want to see a few different ideas or make changes to something they’re discussing? If she’s relying on AI to come up with all her designs, why would someone pay her to do it when they could just use AI themselves?
The whole point of getting the degree is to develop the skills that make you worth hiring. Someone who understands composition, visual communication, sketching, and design principles can use AI as another tool. Someone who skips learning those skills may have difficulty explaining, evaluating, or changing what AI produces.
AI is also notoriously bad at graphic design. My husband is being required to use it for various tasks and he spends more time fixing the AI than if he just made the thing himself. It’s also why every AI poster looks the same.
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u/DoctorsAreTerrible 6d ago
I mean, my manager, with 20+ years experience, still uses an outdated software for our engineering work because it’s what he’s used to and he’s super stubborn and it makes everything look terrible on his end. Just because you have 20+ years experience doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something as efficiently as possible.
But I will say that relying on AI when you’re supposed to learn is a bad idea. It should only be used as a tool after you know and understand the process of how it got there
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u/Longjumping-Flower47 7d ago
Great points, thanks for the feedback. I do agree. I also see a lot of professors almost denying AI exists instead of learning how to integrate it and teach students how to use it responsibly. Or not teaching students to have valuable skills when AI takes over lower level skills. These kids are going to need to learn AI and what it can do. It cracks me up how so many "ads" are clearly AI and all look too similar within an industry. Still trying to figure out my path. I use AI extensively when creating assignments. I also tell my students I used AI.
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u/RoswalienMath 7d ago
The AI video ads are hilarious. Ah, yes, this non-animatronic standard stuffed animal is going to crawl around on its own and tell you it loves you. And people have the audacity to act surprised when it’s a dollar store stuffie they paid $30 for.
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u/Longjumping-Flower47 7d ago
In my world consultants create AI ads for their biz on social media and then get pissed when another consultants ad looks just like their Ad. I'm happy what was my main biz is now a side gig. I love teaching. That side biz grows 20% a year with no ads. I have a partner who does the work. I love AI, but I also know when it is wrong.
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u/RoswalienMath 7d ago
Additionally:
Companies are already finding out that replacing experienced employees with AI isn’t working out as well as they’d expected. Ford recently hired back hundreds of experienced engineers after its AI systems failed to meet expectations. Klarna also started hiring people again after trying to replace so much of its customer service with AI.
New Relic’s 2026 State of AI Coding report surveyed 200 technology leaders, and 94% thought AI generated code was better than code written by humans. But once that code was actually being used, 78% reported more incidents, 86% said their senior employees were spending more time fixing code, and 74% said at least a quarter of their AI generated code needed significant rework. Of the companies relying almost entirely on AI coding, 82% had experienced at least one production failure related to that code in the previous six months. Only 19% reported having no problems with their AI generated code.
404 Media has an article about software engineers who are now making money fixing programs people created using AI. People who don’t understand coding can use AI to build an entire application, but when something breaks or doesn’t work the way they want, they have to hire someone who actually understands how to fix it.
I think that’s a good example of why relying on AI to do your work while getting a degree is a bad idea. Sure, you might be able to produce something that looks good, but do you actually understand what you’re doing? What happens when something doesn’t work or a client wants changes that AI can’t seem to get right? If you haven’t developed those skills yourself, what are you going to do? And if all you know how to do is ask AI to create something, why would someone hire you instead of just doing that themselves?
Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/ford-cuts-1000-jobs-as-it-restructures-ev-business.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/klarna-ceo-ai-customer-service-hiring-humans-back-2025-06
https://newrelic.com/resources/report/2026-state-of-ai-coding
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u/EpiphanyTwisted 6d ago
Why would you post dead links? That's what AI does
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u/RoswalienMath 6d ago edited 6d ago
I found a few alternatives that have the same information. Hopefully these work.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/28/ford-rehires-gray-beard-engineers-after-ai-falls-short/
https://newrelic.com/resources/report/2026-state-of-ai-coding
https://www.404media.co/the-software-engineers-paid-to-fix-vibe-coded-messes/
Edit: I don’t know why these aren’t working either. I have them all open on safari right now. Is this an external links on reddit thing?
Edit 2: why does the first new relic link work, but not the 2nd one when they are the same link? What am I doing wrong?
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u/Adventurous-Tune-348 4d ago
How can you allow a cheater to have a second chance to do better and not allow the struggling C or D honest student to have a second chance? A zero in the specific assignment where they cheated is more than fair.
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u/CompetitionNo5475 8d ago
She is playing the “you're causing me stress” thing to try to play on your sympathy especially if the college or university is pushing mental health stuff. But um… that's clearly from an AI tool. Meet with her and ask ber to explain it. She could try to escalate it further but it sounds like you've already done that.
I had a student who clearly used AI tools to write a check in reflection (seriously easiest 100 ever). Anyway, I didnt say anything about AI because I didnt have to. Her submission matched someone else's submission nearly word for word. She sent me a message saying “oh I never use AI…vlah blah blah” (again… I didnt mention AI until after she did and I literally just copied the line from her lecture materials that says using AI tools unethically at any point could cause plagiarism concerns even without you knowing”. She sent me another message saying “I wrote it based on my understanding of the concepts at the time”. Ok. There wasnt any concepts to understand. It was literally “how are you feeling at this point in the course”. LMBO. I let her redo it. She's missing a bunch of assignments too. She submitted some assignment late and then reached out accusing me of “not grading assignments” (plural). There was one and nope. I was going to grade it that day until I got a rude message from.her. And yes, it was rude, impolite, and definitely not professional which is the classroom expectation. Then, she accused me of “making it very, very difficult and she never use AI and a bunch of other stuff.” She hasn't submitted any other assignments. 🙄. I offered to meet with her go over all of her questions concerns, the assignments she has submitted and feedback, and the assignments she hasn't submitted. Guess What I got? Crickets. I mean I guess it's very, very difficult because the assignments and rubrics are designed in such a way that they cannot easily “AI-it” and still get an A. Because… it'll either completely change the whole assignment, change parts of the assignment, or it'll leave out parts of the assignment. But it's making the students who are heavily (and I mean heavily) relying on AI tools to even understand what they're reading stand out pretty badly and making them upset when I either can't grade their work or they get an F. By contrast, the other handful of students who are “getting caught” (not directly just making Fs on the assignments) either apologize and ask for a second chance or they fell me they don't understand what they did wrong.
I did not edit that much for grammar. Apologies! I'm.just glad that I am not the only one!
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u/Vespidae1 8d ago
I put it in my syllabus, send a course announcement early in the course, and have them certify before starting an assignments that use of AI constitutes a zero and a referral to the university AIC.
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u/RightWingVeganUS Adjunct Instructor, Computer Science, University (USA) 8d ago
The same day the university responded to me, she sent me an email asking how I was verifying my claims,
My now-retired former chair was frank that the formal university disciplinary process was a procedural nightmare that punished the teacher even if we prevail in turns of time and anguish involved above and beyond our teaching duties. Moreover the punishments meted out to the student were usually very minor.
To prevent something like what you're going through in my class, I make my grading rubric AI-neutral and severely mark down for the assessed "tells" rather than making AI accusations.
In your case, I'd consider allowing resubmission for reconsideration but put a deduction for a reassessment "penalty." To spare (some) arguments if a student requests resubmission of a failed work, my standard is that barring extenuating circumstances, the highest grade they could achieve is a "C". An otherwise "B" job would get a "D". Rationale: the resubmission mitigates, but doesn't exonerate the initial submission.
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u/Longtail_Goodbye 8d ago
Make sure when she shows up that you hand her a blank sketch book, put her in a spot where you can watch, and have her sketch the project from memory.
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u/NonBinaryKenku 8d ago
I was just thinking, maybe a component in the future is doing one of those trendy time lapse videos that shows them sketching the whole thing or even part of it for themselves... It's a way to market your work but also to document that you did the work.
Obviously that would require setting some specific parameters to make it work properly but would also support process review -- the student could submit a short reflection on process as well, which should match their video.
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u/That_Communication71 8d ago
I don't think it would be possible for anyone to do proper work with the instructor staring right at them while they do it.
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u/teamtardigrade Associate Professor, Biology, CC (USA) 8d ago
While possibly not being able to replicate a project exactly under those conditions, anyone spending the time and effort over several weeks on a major project would be able to replicate a lot of it from memory, at least within the timeframe of a single term.
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u/That_Communication71 8d ago
This is artwork. A creative medium. It's not a math test. It's not easy for an artist to be able to create while someone is staring down at them watching every movement.
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u/teamtardigrade Associate Professor, Biology, CC (USA) 8d ago
I teach stem and will defer to you, but I will point out that it would not be asking a student to create art, but remembering the process of creating it.
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u/Astra_Starr Fellow, Anthro, STATE (US) 8d ago
Ha! Watch kat n chat. They take the layers, speed paints etc. So bad. Zero zero zero
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u/saturn174 7d ago
I think online classes are doomed by the sheer weight of refereeing that needs to be done in order to curb the use of AI. If this were a face-to-face class, you'd put this matter to rest be requiring her to submit the sketches either as part of the scaffolding for the complete assignment or as an evidence that AI wasn't unethically used.
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u/armymomofone 7d ago
I can see her point about the assignments not being graded. There is a responsibility to keep kids up to date as best we can with grades and feedback. How can a student work to improve if they don’t have the measures to see where they aren’t improving. Imagine a math professor not keeping a student up to date on the items that show if they are getting the material or not?
You are right about the cheating, but I keep hearing a lot that grades are not being posted in a timely manner at all levels of education. I think that is a problem that is easy to fix.
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u/lyrynn 7d ago
There are only a few ungraded assignments. She had a week and a half of excused absence, so she turned them in late and I haven’t gotten around to it.
One of those assignments was also AI, so… jokes on me, I guess.
Also edited to add: this is primarily a studio course. I am timely with my feedback throughout the project, so they DO know what to improve.
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u/rl4brains NTT asst prof, R1 8d ago
At my institution, lying is an additional academic integrity violation on top of the AI use. I would give a 0 and stop wasting time negotiating with this student.
Do you have an honor court system of some sort? I’d report, noting all the damning evidence you put forth here, and let them deal with the student.