England's University Regulator Says AI Is a 'Generational Risk' to Degrees and Will Require AI-Free Assessment Where Needed
The Office for Students said on November 11 that many unsupervised university assessments in England can be completed to a high standard with AI and little student engagement. It will require institutions to use valid and reliable assessments, in many cases secure AI-free ones such as closed-book exams, presentations and vivas, and says it can impose conditions, fines or funding suspensions where they fall short. The findings come from qualitative research with more than 300 students and staff, not a measure of how widespread AI misuse is.
England's higher education regulator has moved from guidance to enforcement language on AI. The Office for Students (OfS) says generative AI now lets students complete many unsupervised assessments without doing the learning they are meant to test, and that it will hold universities to account if their assessments no longer measure what students know.
What the regulator found#
The OfS and Advance HE, a higher education charity, published research on November 11 drawn from roundtables and interviews. The Guardian reports it covered more than 300 students and staff at 127 universities and colleges. The OfS says many institutions still use unsupervised assessments "that can be completed to a high standard using AI tools without substantive engagement from students." Students described peers completing assessments with large language models "sometimes in just a few minutes" and receiving grades similar to those who did the work themselves.
Other findings, per the OfS: staff use of AI varies widely; many students find their institution's AI policies hard to understand; AI literacy training for staff is often limited and voluntary; and students see AI skills as important for their job prospects. Times of AI has covered Google's year-long Gemini offer for college students and OpenAI's education plugins for college students and faculty.
"It also presents a generational risk to the system as it stands, threatening to undermine students' learning and institutions' ability to assess them," said Josh Fleming, the OfS's director of strategy and delivery. "We need to see far greater efforts to tackle these risks, including far greater use of AI-free assessment."
What changes#
The OfS says it will:
- Require institutions to ensure assessments are valid and reliable measures of knowledge and skills, which "in many cases" will mean secure, AI-free assessments, and require courses that develop relevant skills.
- Hold institutions to account, using levers that include specific conditions of registration, monetary penalties, or suspending access to student support and OfS grant funding.
- Clarify how its rules apply to AI, share examples of effective practice and commission further research on the scale of change.
The Guardian quotes a Department for Education spokesperson saying the government expects the OfS to make its framework "explicit, strong and durable on the use of AI," and Universities UK saying many institutions have already moved to more in-person exams, vivas and process-based assessment.
Limits#
- The research is qualitative; it describes what students and staff reported, not how many students misuse AI or how grades have changed.
- The OfS regulates higher education in England only.
- The OfS has not published examples of institutions sanctioned over AI-related assessment.