Working with Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is big news right now, and it’s going to change the way we live, work and study. At the ³ÉÈË´óƬ, we’re committed to embracing this change and integrating AI into our teaching and learning.

However, it’s important to understand how to work with AI responsibly, in ways that support your learning and maintain academic integrity.

This means understanding when AI can be useful, and when using AI would mean you are skipping important steps in your learning.

Remember that when it comes to assessments, your instructors want to assess your skills and understanding, not what AI can do! Whether or not you have used AI, the following behaviours are breaches of the University’s Academic Integrity Policy:

  • Submitting work which was completed or partially completed by a third party;
  • Submitting work for assessment that is not your own, without attribution or reference to the original source;
  • Inclusion of citations to non-existent or incorrect sources.

Additionally, the Inappropriate Use of Artificial Intelligence is a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy. This includes:

  • submitting Work produced (or partially produced) by generative artificial intelligence as your own Work;
  • using information generated by artificial intelligence without appropriate acknowledgement or attribution
  • the use of Digital Tools to submit Work which significantly misrepresents the Student’s level of competence; or
  • the use of digital tools to disguise plagiarism, collusion, copying, contract cheating or any other behaviours of Academic Misconduct.
How to Use AI Responsibly

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving and its capabilities are changing, and so our approach will continue to be updated. While we all learn together, the most important thing is to be responsible and transparent in the way you're using AI, and to consider privacy and security. 

Artificial Intelligence Guidelines for Students

Generative AI IT Security Guidelines

Student Case Studies Academic Integrity Breaches using AI

Any questions?

We know that you might have thoughts and questions about the University’s approach to working with artificial intelligence. or give us some feedback to help us build our FAQs!

Example 1: Shirley

Shirley has to complete a practical report for her engineering course. The assignment guidelines give information about what sections to include, and require students to include at least 5 references to relevant source material in Harvard style referencing. 

Shirley writes up the steps she undertook in her practical, as well as a discussion of her results. She uses the headings given by her tutor.  One of the headings is ‘Literature Review’. Shirley knows she needs to gather some sources which are relevant to her practical and the methods she used. She uses artificial intelligence to generate some relevant references and insert them into her report, including a reference list. She figures that these references must support what she has to say in the report. 

When Shirley’s tutor marks her report, they notice that the references seem unusual and are not relevant to Shirley’s practical report. Although Shirley has provided a reference list, some of the reference don’t seem to be real. 

Shirley is invited to an academic integrity meeting to discuss the possible use of artificial intelligence to complete her report. She chooses not to attend, but sends a written response explaining that the report is all her own work. 

However, the Academic Integrity Officer finds that three out of the five references provided are not real, and the other two are irrelevant to the topic. They conclude that Shirley has not consulted any of these sources herself, and that it is likely they were generated by AI. Because Shirley has used references that are not real, and that she has not read herself, this is misrepresentation and a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy. 

As a result of this breach, Shirley’s assessment mark was reduced by 50%. The AIO explains that is an assessment includes a research component, students are being assessed on their ability to find and explain relevant research. Getting AI to do this misrepresents the student’s skills.Â