My school is closed today so I can’t talk to anybody right now so I’d like to ask you guys. At my school they only allow TURNITIN for all assignments and we always agree to or get prior notice if said software is being used on our work. Well today my professor sent me a comment saying there was partial AI used on my assignment then proceeds to send me a full PDF of said document being scanned through GPTZero.me. I’ve done extensive research online and on FERPAs webpage. That website literally stores any information fed to it. My assignment is considered educational records. Plus she did this without any transparency nor with my consent. For some reason she sees nothing wrong with using a third party AI detector without consent from us as students nor the school. Location: Virginia.
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You would have to ask the school if they have an account with GPTZero. Contacts with 3rd party AI checkers include FERPA legal language in them. Juts because you have not encouted a professor using it before, doesnt mean there isnt a school contract in play.
Using a tool such as this is not automatically a FERPA violation. This particular tool might be, in certain circumstances, but that isn’t a given.
More, you can’t use the possibility of a FERPA violation as a hammer to stop the accusation of academic dishonesty. They’re two different things. You are free to file a complaint if you believe your rights under FERPA have been violated but that does nothing for the other accusation.