Canvas and AI Detection Tools

The 21st century has been covered under the clouds of the digital era, with so many platforms being used as a main source for online learning. There are platforms like Canvas which is used mainly by teachers and students, at the same time we also have another product from AI technology— tools that detect AI. AI detection tools have been created to make sure academic integrity remains, where student content can be analyzed and the AI-generated ones are identified. But, guess what? These two are not alone, there is a connection between education platforms and AI detection tools, which can be pretty beneficial if you are either a student or an educator. Let’s talk about the connection between these two topics, starting off with a short introduction!

What is Canvas?

Canvas is an internationally recognized Learning Management System that helps students and teachers interact via the Internet. It assists the teachers in sharing and accessing the syllabus and works related to it through the online platform. It allows students to engage in group discussions, gain access to sources, and even submit assignments, all from one hub. Especially during the pandemic, I’d seen how these platforms played a role in virtual classrooms across the world.

One thing that makes Canvas unique is that it can work together with other third-party software. It even lets the teachers embed videos, websites, seminars, and Turnitin (your plagiarism detector). The main objective? To generate a learning platform that gets the students to be more interactive.

But you know, nothing’s perfect, everything has its flaws, and so do these platforms. Canvas does promote learning, but on the contrary, some people think that these AI content creators risk academic honesty, so there is a demand to have a much more advanced AI tool to detect AI content.

What are AI Detection Tools?

So, basically, AI Detection tools are systems that are designed to identify content that has been copied from or generated from artificial intelligence or in simple, content that isn’t human-written. With more students knowing about AI, they have started to rely on AI completely for their assignments or solving their difficult math problems. This has created quite a problem for the teachers, they should have a way to differentiate a human-written and AI-generated content. For this sole purpose, there are tools that scan the content written, studying the patterns, style, and syntax to tag the texts that are AI-generated.

You know back in the day, traditional plagiarism compares written texts with existing resources, AI detection tools instead check on patterns that only artificial intelligence uses to create content. If you notice, you would know that AI-generated texts have a specific structure, a unique structure that can be tracked down by these tools. Bad news to those students who let AI be their tuition teacher but whether your words are in a complicated text or unnatural phrasing, these tools would definitely catch you!

Connection Between AI Detection Tools and Canvas

So, we’re here to the main question, “How do AI detection tools work together with Canvas?” Yes, in simple, Canvas allows teachers to embed these AI detection tools in Canvas websites so that the student’s work can be evaluated. Recently, AI-dependant tools have done the job of writing students’ assignments, discussions, and even answers to exams. Additionally, since it’s available easily, they’ve been used widely. This has created a new problem: “Academic Dishonesty” that can not be detected by traditional plagiarism checkers.

By integrating AI detection tools into Canvas, teachers can automatically scan the assignments submitted by students to check the presence of AI-generated content. These tools work in the background silently to tag the problems in the submitted assignments.

Moreover, it allows teachers to know how much a student depends on AI in their learning process. AI has proven to be a helpful friend but overusing it can prevent you from thinking critically and your originality.

Common Tools in AI Detection

There is a rise in the evolution of these AI detection tools, and some of them have already reached the top trends in the education field. Here are the most famous AI detection tools used globally:

1. Turnitin’s AI Detector

• Usage: In the start, it was used just for detecting plagiarism but recently it has begun to even detect AI content. It tags content that has been copied along with AI-generated content, which makes it a wonderful tool for educators.
• Pros: Allows the working of AI and plagiarism detection, which can also be embedded into Canvas.
• Cons: It might sometimes show false positives, particularly with AI-generated texts that have been edited well.

2. GPTZero

• Usage: GPTZero is specially created to identify texts produced by GPT-based models. It is widely known for its accuracy in detecting AI-written content.
• Pros: It was designed with in-built AI detection, which is its main goal.
• Cons: Sometimes can have trouble detecting content that is a mix-up of both AI and human-written content.

3. CopyLeaks

• Usage: CopyLeaks is not just used for AI detection but also has a multi-purpose goal such as plagiarism and ChatGPT checker. It studies the structure and complexity of each sentence to see if there is influence by AI.
• Pros: It has a supportive hand in multiple languages and works with several LMS platforms such as Canvas.
• Cons: At times, the pricing can be quite expensive for schools or small education sectors.

4. Writer.com AI Detector

• Usage: The AI detection provided by Writer.com is mainly created for business fields but has also been useful in the education field. It scans every word to see if they are AI-generated, depending on writing patterns and possible predictions.
• Pros: Faster and easy to use by users.
• Cons: Less accuracy in submissions that are shorter.

Limitations of AI Detection Tools

As of now, we all know that AI detection tools are a necessity but they do have their flaws. Some of the limitations it has are as follows:

• Evolving AI: In the world of AI, nothing is stable, AI keeps evolving so there is a need for these AI detection tools to evolve so that they can identify those evolved AI texts.
• False Positives: A major consideration, which has been faced by myself as well is that it may label human-written content as AI-generated. For example, a person who has written content with a highly consistent style with perfection can be tagged AI-generated.
• Privacy Issues: Some teachers worry about the privacy of their students. With AI monitoring continuously, the students can feel like they have their autonomy lost.
• Struggle with Hybrid Content: Most of the students use AI tools to give them assistance but still put in their own ideas. In such cases, these tools can label those types of content unfairly.
• Overusage of Tools: These tools are helpful, but they cannot be a replacement for the judgments given by teachers. It still needs the teachers to deeply evaluate the content.

Lastly, AI technology keeps advancing, and so does our need to use AI detection tools in the education fields such as Canvas. While I completely agree that these tools provide a way to make sure there is academic honesty among students, they still pose challenges to the teachers and students as well, which must be taken into consideration. We must understand their pros and cons clearly to help us use these tools more efficiently. In the end, the correct way to use it is to maintain a balance between using technology to learn and at the same time, making sure your originality and the creativity of the human mind are retained.

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