What happened

In a third-year course titled “Natural Language Processing & ChatGPT” at Yonsei University, about 600 students took a midterm exam online on October 15, 2025.

Despite proctoring measures that required them to record their screen, hands, and face, many students allegedly manipulated their camera angles and used multiple windows to evade detection.

The professor caught “a significant number” of cheating incidents and announced that all students found to have cheated would receive zero points for the exam.

A poll on a student community board (“Let’s Vote Honestly”) showed 190 out of 353 respondents admitted to cheating — suggesting more than half the class may have engaged in misconduct. 

According to student reports, “most of us used ChatGPT” during the exam. 

Yonsei University is planning a public hearing, hosted by its Institute for AI and Social Innovation, to discuss ethics, assessment in the AI era, and how to handle such cases.

In parallel, business school students at Seoul National University (SNU) were found to have used AI to generate code in a statistics exam despite an explicit ban; SNU is reportedly considering nullifying all the midterm scores and retesting.

Why it happened

Many Korean universities, including top ones, apparently don’t yet have robust, widely-adopted rules or guidelines for generative AI use in coursework and exams.

Large non-face-to-face lectures (like MOOCs) or online exams create “blind spots” — even with video recording, students can manipulate camera angles or use other devices.

For some students, using AI feels almost like the default. “Not using AI feels like a disadvantage,” some SNU students said.

Before the scandal broke, many institutions may have underestimated the need for explicit enforcement mechanisms; cheating was being caught only after the fact, rather than prevented by design.