Professors Fight AI Cheating With Old School Blue Books

AI Spurs Return to Traditional Exam Methods

With college students increasingly using ChatGPT for take-home tests, homework, and essays, professors are reverting to blue books. These inexpensive, stapled exam booklets, featuring a blue cover and lightly lined pages, are being used to make classrooms ChatGPT-proof.

Roaring Spring Paper Products, the family-owned business manufacturing most blue books, informed The Wall Street Journal that sales have risen in recent years due to AI adoption. Professors are using these traditional books for in-person exams, leveraging the advantage that students cannot use ChatGPT and must handwrite essays under supervision.

Related: College Professors Are Turning to ChatGPT to Generate Course Materials. One Student Noticed — and Asked for a Refund.

Universities Report Surge in Blue Book Demand

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported a surge in demand for blue books. These booklets, which cost about 23 cents each in campus bookstores, were first introduced in the late 1920s.

According to the Journal, blue book sales have significantly increased over the past two years: up more than 30% at Texas A&M University, nearly 50% at the University of Florida, and 80% at the University of California, Berkeley.

Educators Grapple with AI Detection and Student Use

Kevin Elliott, a lecturer in Yale University's ethics, politics, and economics program, told WSJ he switched from at-home essays to blue books during the spring semester. This change came after he realized students were using AI for assignments, evidenced by take-home papers containing fabricated quotes from famous philosophers—a clear indicator of AI generation.

Elliott's new system required students to write final essays in blue books. He found it so effective that he plans to continue this practice for the upcoming academic year.

Many college leaders believe AI tools have led to widespread cheating. A survey released in January by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and Elon University revealed that 59% of university leaders report an increase in cheating on their campuses since AI tools became widely available. Furthermore, more than half of these leaders think their faculty cannot distinguish between AI-generated work and student-written papers.

Meanwhile, a January 2023 survey from Study.com involving over 100 educators and 1,000 students found that nearly 90% of college students had used ChatGPT for homework. Additionally, 53% had it write an essay, and 48% had used it for an at-home test or quiz. Over 70% of college professors expressed concern about ChatGPT's potential for cheating on assignments.

Related: Hiring Managers Want Workers With ChatGPT Experience, New Survey Says

The AI Skills Dilemma in Academia and Beyond

However, some professors who use blue book exams to restrict ChatGPT also acknowledge that students could benefit from learning how to use such tools for productivity after graduation.

Arthur Spirling, a politics professor at Princeton University, told WSJ that while he administers proctored blue book exams, he finds it a "strange" situation to limit ChatGPT in the classroom when students will likely use it extensively in their future full-time jobs. He remarked to the outlet, "It is strange to say you won't be permitted to do this thing that will be very natural to you for the rest of your career."

Illustrating the tool's widespread adoption, ChatGPT reportedly had 500 million global weekly users as of April, up from a reported 400 million weekly users in February.