Helping you guide your students

Introduction

students chatting over laptops

As AI models, AI-powered tools and large language models continue to emerge and improve, many teachers are curious about how to begin a conversation with their students about how these technologies can be integrated into learning.

This page offers key information for how to introduce students to the concept of responsible AI use in their studies, including:

How to use and acknowledge AI in a way that adheres to the fundamental principles of assessment.
Official UNSW communications that have been sent to students about using AI in academic work.

Guidance to students

What guidance can teachers offer students about using AI in academic work?

UNSW’s overarching learning and teaching approach is to graduate students who have experienced positive and transformative learning and who are equipped to join the workforce. Use of current technologies is a core part of that approach. Assessments are about enabling students to show their learning, and validity of assessment is a key component of effective and fair assessment. UNSW seeks to balance innovation with validity.

Whatever the extent to which students are explicitly permitted or advised to use generative AI for an assessment, teaching staff should make it clear that the fundamental principles of assessment still apply:

Students must follow the assessment instructions. Students are entitled to use generative AI to the extent specified by the course instructions or university rules. All assessment instructions should set out the acceptable use of AI tools. Whether the use of generative AI is appropriate for coursework and assessments is both context- and task-dependent. There will never be a "one size fits all" approach to generative AI.
What students present must be their own work. Make sure that what students are asked to present, or the aspect that is being assessed, is substantially their own (or their group's) work.
Students must acknowledge sources. Students should attribute all sources using proper referencing, unless the assessment nature or instructions exempt them from doing so. External sources that must be referenced include both the work of others and sources from digital or physical objects, with AI classified as an external source. When using generative AI, students should provide proper attribution as outlined in the assessment instructions.
At the beginning of the term, you should have a conversation about the impact of AI on learning and assessment in your course, and the standards you wish the students to follow.
Allow students to ask clarifying questions about the assessments and associated instructions. Ensure all students in the course can access your responses.

To ensure our students can use generative AI with confidence and sound ethics, we recommend that staff point students to the resources below from the Student Learning team and the Academic Skills team.