The Pandemic, GenAI, & the Return to Handwritten, In-Person, Timed, and Invigilated Exams: Causes, Context, and the Perpetuation of Ableism (Part 1 of 2)

Academic Handwriting, Part 1 of 3

Liv Marken, Rebekah Bennetch, and Brian Hotson are authoring three pieces on handwriting in academic writing. We’re beginning with Liv’s piece, which is in two parts. Here’s part one.
– CWCR/RCCR Editor


Vol. 4, No. 3 (Summer 2023)

Liv Marken, Contributing Editor, CWCR/RCCR


When post-secondary institutions resumed in-person classes this year, many instructors and programs brought back handwritten, in-person, timed, and invigilated examinations (Hoyle, 2023; McLoughlin, 2023). This return to tradition was partly spurred by anxieties around the increase in student cheating during the remote phase of the pandemic (Bilen, Matros & Matros, 2021; Eaton, et al., 2023; Lancaster & Cortolan, 2023; Noorbehbahani, Mohammadi, & Aminazadeh 2022; Peters, 2023, Reed, 2023). Then, with OpenAI’s November 30, 2022 release of the artificial intelligence text generator, ChatGPT, anxieties about cheating escalated rapidly (Heidt, 2023). The AI language model’s ability to quickly generate natural-sounding text (in addition to its abilities in language tasks such as translation, summarization, and question answering) were exciting but also alarming (Cotton, Cotton, & Shipway, 2023; Susnjak, 2022), Since its release, ChatGPT’s steady improvement, as well as the proliferation of similar AI writing tools, have led to newly intensified anxieties around maintaining academic integrity (Cotton, Cotton, & Shipway, 2023; Susnjak, 2022).  AI detectors, which may seem like a silver bullet to prevent and catch plagiarism, have been shown to make false accusations (Drapkin, 2023) and show bias against non-native English speakers (Liang et al., 2023). OpenAI found that their own detection tool, AI Classifier, was just not effective at catching cheating, leading the company to “quietly” shut it down (Nelson, 2023): “As of July 20, 2023, the AI classifier is no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy” (OpenAI, 2023). With pandemic and generative AI cheating concerns, and no easy solutions, post-secondary institutions are in is a race against the clock to redesign assessment before the fall semester (Fowler, 2023; Heidt, 2023; Hubbard, 2023). Continue reading “The Pandemic, GenAI, & the Return to Handwritten, In-Person, Timed, and Invigilated Exams: Causes, Context, and the Perpetuation of Ableism (Part 1 of 2)”

Announcement || CWCA/ACCR 2021 Conference CfP – Transformative Inclusivity: Social Justice and Writing Centres

8th CWCA/ACCR Conference

CWCA 2020 logo

Transformative Inclusivity:
Social Justice and Writing Centres


May 17 – 21, 2021

Virtual Conference


“[A] culture of access is a culture of participation and redesign”
–Elizabeth Brewer, Cynthia L. Selfe, and M. Remi Yergeau


Conference Context

For our 2021 conference, the Canadian Writing Centres Association / association canadienne des centres de rédaction welcomes proposals on any writing centre-related subject, but particularly proposals that consider and/or critique frameworks of inclusion, access, and accessibility. These themes may be related to anti-racist work and Indigenization at writing centres, to our recent experiences arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to writing and writing centre theory, pedagogy, praxis, programming, administration, research, physical and online environments, advocacy, or activism.

Writing centres have committed to making their spaces and services accessible, inclusive, and democratic, not least to students and tutors from marginalized backgrounds (Geller et al., 2007; Greenfield & Rowan, 2011; Hitt, 2012; Lang, 2017; Martini & Webster, 2017). Even as COVID-19 has inflected, sharpened, and foregrounded systemic inequities, the Black Lives Matter movement, Indigenous movements for social justice such as 1492 Land Back Lane and Idle No More, and the Disability Rights Movement have called upon us, with greater urgency than ever before, to expand the definition and the scope of access, and revitalize writing centres as social justice projects. Continue reading “Announcement || CWCA/ACCR 2021 Conference CfP – Transformative Inclusivity: Social Justice and Writing Centres”