Artificial Intelligence – Position Statement

Contents

Introduction

This article sets out a position statement on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within teaching, learning and assessment. Detailed guidance for both staff and students is provided in the accompanying articles.

Our position

The University Group recognises the potential of AI tools in our teaching, learning and in the workplaces that our students will be entering. It is therefore important that we support their use in a considered and transparent way that recognises the associated risks. We need to be future-focused and ensure we take advantage of what AI has to offer. One of the most significant advantages of AI is its ability to provide students with a personalised learning experience. AI technologies enable students to access learning materials more quickly and efficiently than ever before, which will support students with assessments. However, whilst taking advantage of what AI has to offer our students, we need to ensure we educate and guide students towards appropriate use of AI. It remains too easy for students to misunderstand how they can use AI tools and potentially breach our academic integrity guidelines. The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) has recently produced a briefing paper on the threat to academic integrity posed by AI.

It isn’t viable or forward-thinking to enter a blanket ban on AI use, neither is it appropriate to ignore the risks it poses to academic integrity. We encourage staff to consider how we adapt our teaching, learning, and assessment to make the most of AI in an effective, ethical, and transparent way. At the same time, we must continue to maintain academic integrity and AI misuse will only add to the fundamental challenges we face in this endeavour. Whilst we should continue to screen for academic misconduct, we should address the root causes of it, through developing a culture of academic integrity, through open discussions with our students about the appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI tools.

AI Guidance

AI and Assessment – Staff Guidance
Staff Guidance – Setting Artificial Intelligence (AI) expectations for an assessment
- includes a list of AI uses and how students should acknowledge the use of AI
Student Guidance

Assessment Design

We encourage staff in the long-term to consider the ways in which module learning outcomes, assessments and assessment criteria can benefit from redesign to ensure it is the student’s own learning that is being assessed and to maintain academic integrity. This can be achieved through creating assessments that are about process rather than product, and that are about applying knowledge, not just about knowledge. In the shorter term, we encourage staff to offer students opportunities to learn how AI tools work, to openly discuss and debate the ethics of AI, the current strengths, and limitations of the technology, and if AI tools can be used appropriately, i.e., effectively, ethically, and transparently in relation to their assessments.

Appropriate use and inappropriate use of AI will vary across disciplines and across assessments; therefore, it is important to consider the guidelines below in the context of your subject area, the learning outcomes of your modules, and how students are assessed.

Assessment design to counter academic misconduct

Assessment and AI – design principles