South Korean universities face ‘widespread cheating’ after AI exam scandals

Mass cheating in online exams has resurfaced during finals at South Korean universities, exposing institutions’ incomplete preparedness and ongoing struggles to establish effective online test controls and guidelines for students’ artificial intelligence (AI) use.\nAccording to Seoul National University, on Sunday, the results of a final exam for a general education course offered by its College of Natural Sciences were invalidated after signs of cheating were detected among nearly half of the 36 students enrolled.\nThe course was an online distance-learning class designed for students on leave for mandatory military service, with both lectures and exams conducted remotely.\nTo prevent misconduct, the exam system was set to record activity whenever test-takers opened any windows other than the exam screen. A subsequent review by a teaching assistant later found such logs for nearly half of the students, leading the university to invalidate the exam results.\nHowever, it has been difficult to conclusively establish misconduct because the logs do not indicate which screens were accessed. As a result, the professor overseeing the course invalidated the exam results and assigned alternative coursework, rather than imposing disciplinary penalties on students.\nThe professor noted that while definitive proof was lacking, the scale of the suspicious activity strongly hinted at academic misconduct.\nSeoul National University said it was drafting “institutionwide steps” in response to what it described as “widespread cheating”.\n\nReportedly, discussions are under way about making in-person exams the default, while turning to alternatives for online assessments – including open-book formats, redesigned questions and assignment-based evaluations – when remote testing is unavoidable.\nThe university said it is also moving to introduce “campuswide guidelines on AI use”.\nUnder the proposed framework, instructors would be required to clearly outline their AI policy in the course syllabus, enabling students to understand the expectations in advance. The draft guidelines are currently being reviewed through consultations with faculty and students, according to the university.\nThe university had already been rocked by an AI-related cheating case during the October midterm exam for an introductory statistics laboratory course, underscoring the urgency of stronger measures to curb academic misconduct.\nThe wave of mass cheating is not confined to Seoul National University, with similar cases resurfacing at other elite universities in South Korea following AI-related cheating scandals during midterm season.\nEarlier this month, Yonsei University uncovered another case of mass cheating during the October midterm exam in the same course that had been at the centre of a large-scale cheating scandal involving the use of artificial intelligence.\nIt occurred during an online quiz taken by roughly 200 students, where some participants were found to have exchanged questions and answers through anonymous online chat rooms. Some were also reported to have shared exam content in real time using collaborative platforms such as Google Docs.\n\n\nThe course is delivered through recorded online lectures and has already drawn allegations of academic misconduct during the midterm exam. In response, the university moved the final exam to an in-person format, while online quizzes continued to be administered remotely.\nYonsei University has had guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence in place since last year and updated them in September. But the framework remains broad and largely advisory rather than enforceable, leaving individual courses to apply differing standards for the use of such tools.\nCritics say universities have largely relied on ad hoc responses – including invalidating exams – when cheating cases surface, an approach they warn could deepen mistrust between students and administrators instead of addressing the underlying causes of academic misconduct.\nThis story was first published by The Korea Times\n