Editorial: AI, ghosts in the machine, and AINT

Authors

  • Peter Shea University at Albany, State University of New York

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v30i3.6577

Keywords:

artificial intelligence, academic integrity, Generative AI, agentic AI, Critical Thinking, online learning

Abstract

As we bring you another issue of Online Learning, (the third issue of our 30th year of publication by the way), I wanted again to include some reflections on the topic of AI and academic integrity.  As noted by many journal editors, we are seeing exponential growth in the number of AI generated submissions to journals. Recently, an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Mya Poe (2026) noted that the influx of AI generated papers was degrading scholarship, making it more difficult for authors of papers to attract citations who were located in the “missing middle”. 

Author Biography

Peter Shea, University at Albany, State University of New York

Dr. Peter Shea is a professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York with joint appointments in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice and the Department of Informatics. His research focuses on the development of communities of learners in higher education online environments. Dr. Shea has a long history of publications on the topic of online learning in journals such as Online Learning, Computers and Education, The Internet and Higher Education, IRRODL, and is co-author of the book, The Successful Distance Learning Student. He directs a program of research on online learning that has attracted significant external funding from organizations such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the US Department of Education. He is the recipient or co-recipient of four national awards including the EDUCAUSE Award for Systemic Improvement in Teaching and Learning and awards from the Sloan Consortium for online and faculty development programs. He is a Sloan-C Fellow in research on online learning and a member of their board of directors. Prior to joining the University at Albany, he was Director of the SUNY Learning Network, one of the largest online higher education systems in the United States with annual student enrollments of more than 100,000.

References

Bozkurt, A., Crompton, H., & Fell Kurban, C. (2026). The devil is in the det[ai]ls: AI agents, ghost students, and the crisis of verified presence in an agentic AI world. Open Praxis, 18(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.55982/openpraxis.18.1.1145

Doctorow, C. (2026). The reverse centaur’s guide to life after AI: How to think about artificial intelligence—before it’s too late. MCD.

Gerlich, M. (2025). AI tools in society: Impacts on cognitive offloading and the future of critical thinking. Societies, 15(1), Article 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15010006

Goldstein, D. (2026, August 17). What do students lose when they stop writing? The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/us/student-writing-essays-ai.html

Kosmyna, N., Hauptmann, E., Yuan, Y. T., Situ, J., Liao, X.-H., Beresnitzky, A. V., Braunstein, I., & Maes, P. (2025). Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt when using an AI assistant for essay writing task [Preprint]. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2506.08872

Mills, A. (2026, January 27). AI feedback customized for student writers: The updated PAIRR prompts. Anna Mills’ Substack. https://annamills.substack.com/p/ai-feedback-customized-for-student

Mollick, E. R., & Mollick, L. (2023). Assigning AI: Seven approaches for students, with prompts [Preprint]. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.10052

Narayanan, A., & Kapoor, S. (2025). AI snake oil: What artificial intelligence can do, what it can’t, and how to tell the difference (Updated ed.). Princeton University Press.

Narayanan, A., & Kapoor, S. (2025, September 9). A guide to understanding AI as normal technology. AI as Normal Technology. https://www.normaltech.ai/p/a-guide-to-understanding-ai-as-normal

Poe, M., & Dryer, D. B. (2026, August 10). AI is ruining scholarship. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/ai-is-ruining-scholarship

Ray, S. E. (2026, August 12). The next wave of AI-cheating technology. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-next-wave-of-ai-cheating-technology

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Harvard University Press.

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Published

2026-09-01

How to Cite

Shea, P. (2026). Editorial: AI, ghosts in the machine, and AINT. Online Learning, 30(3), iv-vii. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v30i3.6577

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 3 (2026): Online Learning

Section

Introduction

License

Copyright (c) 2026 Peter Shea

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