Policy 075: Student Use of Artificial Intelligence

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POLICY 075: Student Use of Artificial Intelligence

1. SCOPE

1.1 This policy applies to all students enrolled on programmes at ACM, including all FE provision and all HE provision, including Foundation programmes, Integrated Masters programmes and Masters programmes. 

2. INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT AND POSITION

2.1 ACM believes that AI tools are transformative and disruptive, and that they will feature in many academic and professional workplaces. As an institution, ACM is committed to exploring ways in which it can utilise AI to support and facilitate deeper learning. 

2.2 Rather than seek to prohibit the use of AI tools, ACM will support students in using them effectively, ethically and transparently. Tools such as ChatGPT, Quillbot, CoPilot and Grammarly can help students in a number of ways. Examples might include: 

• Drafting your own ideas, and planning or structuring written materials. 
• Generating graphics, images and visuals to support your work
• Helping to improve grammar and writing structure – especially helpful if English is a second language. 
• Deriving explanations. 

3. STUDENT RESPONSIBILITIES

3.1 Whilst AI tools are powerful and easy to use, they can negatively impact your learning as they can detract from the reflection and critical engagement that are essential for deep and meaningful learning. 

3.2 AI tools can also easily provide misleading or incorrect information. Students who rely on these tools too much risk losing their own skills and expertise, and may struggle to study or work without them. 

3.3 Students should be aware that tools such as those listed in 2.2, whilst useful, can lead a student to commit academic misconduct if content is created that is not the student’s own. These tools, and others, are multi-functional. It is the student’s responsibility to use these tools in a way that upholds academic integrity and to ensure you do not commit academic misconduct.

Academic Integrity

3.4 To our students we say: Be enquiring, be conscientious, be honest. Although the use of AI simplifies studying in many ways, it must not lead you to neglect your study efforts and rely on the outputs provided by these tools – keep academic integrity uppermost in your mind because academic misconduct can negatively impact your progression and final award. 

3.5 Students must always ensure they demonstrate academic integrity in their work. This means employing good judgement to ensure that AI has been used appropriately and without gaining an inappropriate advantage. It is crucial that you do not use AI tools to generate work, including sections of written work, and submit it as if it was your own. This will be considered academic misconduct. As a result, submission of such work may result in your work receiving a fail grade, having to redo your work with a penalty to your grade, or even withdrawal from the course. 

Know the Limitations of Artificial Intelligence

3.6 The use of AI has clear limitations. For example, currently available AI tools can: 

• Only simulate understanding. 
• ‘Hallucinate’ to create plausible sounding but factually incorrect answers. 
• Inherit bias and viewpoints from the training material. 
• Use information that is not always up to date. 

3.7 AI tools are not reliable sources. Think of them as the equivalent of asking a random stranger on the street something: the information they provide might be taken from any number of inaccurate, misleading, or misremembered sources, but made to sound convincing. 

Writing Style and Academic Writing 

3.8 ACM is aware that students, especially those new to Higher Education, may struggle with Academic Writing and the purpose of such writing as a skill set. Academic writing is about presenting existing, trusted sources that support your own ideas, which are themselves based on your research and/or your experiences throughout your learning. 

3.9 The academic writing approach allows you to deliver this as a body of work that is coherent and easily accessible by a university marker. But this is different to, and does not mean, using unnecessarily fancy words to make your work sound ‘smarter’. In fact, we have already seen instances of student work that has supposedly been ‘improved’ by AI actually become less coherent, or less in line with the Assessment task, due to an over-reliance on sounding ‘academic.’ 

3.10 Make sure you focus on the substance required of the assessment brief and the learning outcomes. Speak to your tutors, who are there to support you, about what the assessment is actually asking for. 

3.11 It is a breach of academic integrity to blend AI-generated content with your own content.

Declaration of AI Use 

3.12 Students should never pass off ideas or text taken from AI as their own, and there should be a clear acknowledgement of how AI has been used in the work. Your assessment briefs require you to complete a Declaration of Authenticity. This includes a statement on the use of AI and now takes the form of a Canvas ‘Quiz’. 

3.13 Completing the Declaration of Authenticity is a mandatory requirement of the submission process. You should complete this declaration whether you have used AI in your submission or not. It is important to be aware that any suspected AI use in a submission that is not accompanied by an appropriate declaration will be flagged for potential Academic Misconduct. 

AI Detection Tools

3.14 ACM employs the latest AI detection software, which includes Turnitin’s AI detector tool, as a component of our academic compliance procedure, though this is not our sole point of reference. 

Keeping Drafts of your work

3.15 Should you feel the need or desire to improve your work through AI in an acceptable manner, such as those outlined in paragraph 1.3 above, it is good practice and in your own interests to keep drafts of your work before the influence of AI. This will be requested as a part of the Academic Misconduct investigation should there be any suspicion of over-reliance on AI in your work, particularly where there is no Declaration of Authenticity apparent. Being able to show how your drafts led to the finished work is a positive way of working with the academic integrity process. 

3.16 ACM provides unlimited storage in Google Drive to every student. It is good practice and in your own interest to create, draft and store your work in your Google Drive, thereby maintaining transparency and a clear record of document creation.

4. OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS

4.1 Internal Documents

• Policy 007 Academic Integrity
• Policy 012 Learning, Teaching, Assessment and Attainment
• Policy 061 Student Engagement and Participation
• Harvard referencing guide found on the student Canvas page 

5. DATE OF APPROVAL AND NEXT REVIEW

5.1 This policy applies to Academic Year 2024-25

Download: POL_075 Student Use of Artificial Intelligence