Ethical and Unethical Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges for Online Graduate Education

The use of generative AI offers diverse benefits and challenges to students, faculty, administrators, and staff in institutions of higher education, with particular challenges for online graduate education programs. Benefits include student access to learning services, adaptive learning platforms for students with disabilities, and the development of scholarly skills and voice. Faculty can benefit from improved productivity, enhanced course content, the creation of complex learning opportunities, and support for student assessment. Administrators and staff can improve routines and advising efficiencies and quickly identify at-risk students. Gen-AI-enabled predictive analytics can enhance and monitor institutional-level projects and support administrative decision-making. Challenges arise from the misuse of Gen-AI writing capabilities, which can compromise the authenticity of graduate students’ scholarship if not used ethically, undermine the development of students’ autonomy and human agency if not critically applied within human contexts, and perpetuate stereotypes and biases if Gen-AI platforms are not assessed for accuracy. The duality between the benefits and challenges creates a paradox regarding when, how, and if Gen-AI should be used in higher education. Despite the many concerns that Gen-AI raises in higher education, it has become increasingly integrated across all aspects of higher education, especially in the online environment. By situating Gen-AI related challenges within contemporary scholarship, this article may contribute to ongoing debates on how higher education can adapt to technological change while safeguarding the ethics and integrity of culminating online graduate studies, the development of autonomy and human agency in students, and the safe and equitable application of Gen-AI tools in IHE. These issues are particularly salient in online graduate programs.