Beyond Academic Integrity: Navigating Institutional and Disciplinary Anxieties About AI-Assisted Authorship in Technical and Professional Communication
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online January, 2025
Beyond Academic Integrity: Navigating Institutional and Disciplinary Anxieties About AI-Assisted Authorship in Technical and Professional Communication
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools are already being implemented for a variety of writing tasks in workplaces, where individual (human) authorship is valued less than the efficient production of text. But policies regarding AI use in higher education continue to prioritize academic integrity, focusing on narrowly defined notions of authorship that do not reflect the realities of workplace writing. Through an analysis of 100 university policies on AI, this article shows how AI tools create a tension for faculty in technical and professional communication who must operate within institutional or departmental policies for AI use but must also prepare writers for workplace authorship.
ATLAS.ti Scientific Software Development GmbH (2023). ATLAS.ti Web (Version 23.2.1) [Qualitative data analysis software]. https://atlasti.com.
2.
BerdanierC. G. P.AlleyM. (2023). We still need to teach engineers to write in the era of ChatGPT. Journal of Engineering Education, 112(3), 583–586. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20541
CardonP.FleischmannC.AritzJ.LogemannM.HeidewaldJ. (2023). The challenges and opportunities of AI-assisted writing: Developing AI literacy for the digital age. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 86(3), 257–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294906231176517
5.
CardonP. W.GetchellK.CarradiniS.FleischmannC.StappJ. (2023, March 18). Generative AI in the workplace: Employee perspectives of ChatGPT benefits and organizational policies. SocArXiv.https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/b3ezy.
CottonD. R. E.CottonP. A.ShipwayJ. R. (2023). Chatting and cheating: Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 61(2), 228–239. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2023.2190148
FindlayE. (2019). When writers aren’t authors: Workplace literacies in the age of mass writing (Publication No. 13902444) [Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison]. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global.
11.
GeislerC. (2004). Analyzing streams of language: Twelve steps to the systematic coding of text, talk, and other verbal data. Pearson.
12.
GetchellK.CarradiniS.CardonP. W.FleishmannC.MaH.ArtizJ.StappJ. (2022). Artificial intelligence in business communication: The changing landscape of research and teaching. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 85(1), 7–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294906221074311
13.
GonzalesL. (2023). Fostering learning, curiosity, and community in the age of generative AI. Symposium: English education in an artificial world. English Education, 55(3), 214–216. https://doi.org/10.58680/ee202332555
14.
GrahamS. S. (2023). Post-process but not post-writing: Large language models and a future for composition pedagogy. Composition Studies, 51(1), 162–168.
