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AI chatbots have recently fuelled debate regarding education practices in higher education institutions worldwide. Focusing on Generative AI and ChatGPT in particular, our study examines how AI chatbots impact university teachers' assessment practices, exploring teachers' perceptions about how ChatGPT performs in response to home examination prompts in undergraduate contexts. University teachers (n = 24) from four different departments in humanities and social sciences participated in Turing Test-inspired experiments, where they blindly assessed student and ChatGPT-written responses to home examination questions. Additionally, we conducted semi-structured interviews in focus groups with the same teachers examining their reflections about the quality of the texts they assessed. Regarding chatbot-generated texts, we found a passing rate range across the cohort (37.5 − 85.7%) and a chatbot-written suspicion range (14–23%). Regarding the student-written texts, we identified patterns of downgrading, suggesting that teachers were more critical when grading student-written texts. Drawing on post-phenomenology and mediation theory, we discuss AI chatbots as a potentially disruptive technology in higher education practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen observatories can be defined as socio-technical constellations designed to make people who are nonprofessional scientists empowered entities. By enabling citizens to monitor their environment via collection and sharing of data, citizen observatories can be viewed as an application or iteration of citizen science. This article contributes to mapping out the current landscape of citizen engagement and participation in environmental monitoring. We draw on a systematic analysis of 57 peer-reviewed papers and argue that citizen observatories have the potential to make a substantial social impact by bringing together different stakeholders and digital technologies. We also discuss the challenges of civic participation, quality of the data gathered, and long-term sustainability. The article identifies several critical gaps in the field that provide a guide for future studies on citizen observatories. Furthermore, it encourages deeper engagement within developing nations and investigates the impact of this approach on nurturing sustainable societies globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]