Using Gen AI in your assessments

Your Assessment Guidance document

Each Assessment Guidance document includes a section on using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) tools. Read this carefully to ensure you understand how GenAI may be used in the assessment.

• The default position across the University is that you may use GenAI in reasonable and appropriate ways to support your work. 
• The way you can use GenAI will vary between assessments, so always check your Assessment Guidance document first.
• Using GenAI outside the permitted scope may be considered misrepresentation under the University’s Academic Integrity Policy and Academic Misconduct Procedure. 
• Where you're required to acknowledge how you've used GenAI, your Assessment Guidance document will say so and explain what's needed. If it doesn't mention acknowledgement, you don't need to add a statement - but check with your tutor if you're unsure.
• If anything is unclear, ask your module leader.

Using GenAI is your choice

Where GenAI is permitted, using it is your choice. Assessments are designed so that you can achieve the learning outcomes with or without GenAI, unless its use is an important part of your module and therefore a required element of the assessment task. 

Tips for using GenAI

• If you decide to use GenAI, remember that it can sometimes provide inaccurate, incomplete, or biased information. Check and verify any information it provides using reliable original sources (such as professional websites, academic books, and journal articles). Think critically about what it suggests and take responsibility for the work you submit. 
• Treat GenAI outputs as a starting point, not a source. If you use an idea, fact, or argument suggested by GenAI, find the original source of that information and cite and reference it appropriately.
• Our recommended tool is Microsoft 365 Copilot, signed in with your University account - look for the green shield with a tick. It is covered by the University's data security policy, and your content is not used to train the underlying models. Whichever tool you use, never enter your own work, anyone else's work, personal data, or unpublished research into a tool that is not University-approved.

Information for users of assistive technology

Many assistive technology tools have GenAI features built in. You're allowed to use these features for assessed work. This enables students - especially students with disabilities who may need this technology as a reasonable adjustment - to check areas of academic writing such as:

• structure.
• fluency.
• presentation.
• grammar.
• spelling.
• punctuation.
• language translation.

Grammarly and similar tools are adding functionality that can generate content in a similar way to Copilot. You shouldn't use these content-generation features in work you submit unless your assessment guidance document permits it.

Your written communication may be part of the assessment criteria for some pieces of work. If so, contact your module tutor for clarification on what's acceptable in relation to assistive technologies.

The work you submit must be your own. It would be considered academic misconduct if the software has made substantive changes that fundamentally change the message or content submitted.