Educators play a crucial role in cultivating and supporting class community. A robust class community invites all students into participation and engagement in the process of learning. In this engaged learning community students can be encouraged and empowered to participate fully and honestly, supplementing academic integrity and AI policies with an overarching culture of class ethics.

<aside> 💡 View this infographic for an overview of practices to promote academic integrity in the classroom, and read on for a detailed description of additional strategies to build a culture of inclusive learning and academic integrity.

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Cultivating a Robust Class Community

“Ghost Students” and Enrollment Fraud

What are “Ghost Students?”

“Ghost students” or “AI students” are another area of concern regarding AI use. These cases, however, go beyond academic dishonesty into criminal fraudulent activity.

Ghost student scammers create fake student accounts to enroll at colleges and universities. Scammers use these fake students to steal financial aid money or, if they're able to enroll, use the fake students' .edu email addresses to perpetrate other scams. Community colleges, including GRCC, are popular targets for this type of enrollment fraud; in 2022, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office found that 1 in 5 applications to the California community college system were fraudulent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHRWjBfGVB4

Detecting Ghost Students

Several GRCC offices are collaborating to identify and block these fraudulent enrollments, but some ghost students may make it through the screening into active courses. When this happens, ghost students tend not to participate in course activities or respond to emails or messages. As a result, many of the strategies we’ve provided in this toolkit can help identify these students.

Some additional strategies exist to identify potential ghost students in our courses:

• Use LMS analytics to identify and contact students who have not participated in the first few days of class.
• Send a message to students before the class begins, asking them to complete a quick poll or prompt. Follow up with students who do not respond.
• Incorporate an introductory assignment or discussion post early in the first week of class; consider asking for a “selfie” or other photograph of the students.

Faculty should not use valuable time manually checking each and every student in their courses, but should keep an eye out for potential fraud and use some of these strategies to help. If you suspect one or more of your students are ghost students, contact TLDE at [email protected].