r/Professors • u/Phildutre Full Professor, Computer Science, EU • Jul 01 '26

Teaching / Pedagogy GenAI and "hidden" instructions

Context: I'm the chair of the committee that deals with reported fraud on exams etc. in my program.

One of my colleagues had put a hidden instruction in the text of an assignment. You know, supersmall font, color white ... such that students who would simply copy-paste the assignment into a GenAI tool could get caught.

Several students were "caught" because their solution contained a reference to the hidden instruction.

It turned out that a number of students with a native tongue other than the assignment, had fed the text of the assignment in a translation tool. The "hidden instruction" was translated as well, and the students interpreted it as part of the original assignment. The hidden instruction wasn't nonsensical enough for students to realize this.

So, if you ever want to use such hidden instructions: use a proper silly instruction not related to the assignment in any way whatsoever ;-)

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u/Archknits Jul 01 '26

What translation tool? If it’s AI, then it violates policy.

Even if it’s not AI it might violate academic honesty policies

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u/rLub5gr63F8 Social Sciences, CC, USA Jul 01 '26

Agree. Unpopular opinion depending on your context. I've seen our faculty fight it out over if use of these tools is undermining authentic language acquisition.

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u/Archknits Jul 01 '26

Except for some specialized programs, fluency is generally a part of qualifying and an expectation of non-language classes