INT6067 Chap.8 AI Tools in Research Work and Academic Honesty
AI Tools in Research Work and Academic Honesty
A permission with one condition attached
The course outline carries a section on the use of generative tools in assessment with two options, one stating that such tools are not allowed for any assessment task and one stating that they may be used in some or all tasks with instructions supplied by the teaching staff.
The permissive option is the one in force here, and the assessment instruction attaches a condition to it that is not negotiable: a statement detailing which tools were used, the extent of their use and how they contributed must be included in the individual report and in the accompanying presentation slides, and failing to disclose or to provide the statement may result in academic penalties.
Because the option differs between courses, a habit formed here can be a penalty elsewhere.
Two separate acts of declaring
The first happens at submission.
Work goes through the similarity checking service, and during the upload you choose between two statements: one saying the submission contains no material generated by such tools, and one saying it does and that how the material was used has been stated in the assignment itself. The second is the statement inside the document.
Ticking the box without writing the statement is the commonest failure and also the worst looking one, because the box promised the statement exists.
The university's guidance sets out what the statement should contain: which tools were employed, the intended purpose, the prompts entered, and how the outputs were integrated into the submitted work.
Where students misjudge the line
The obligation is triggered by use rather than by amount, so a grammar check on a finished draft is declared exactly as a brainstorming session is.
Generated citations that look correct and do not exist are a known failure and are fatal in a literature review in a specific way: a marker who checks one and finds nothing stops trusting the other thirty.
One study in the course readings surveys educators and students on acceptable use across six stages of writing, from brainstorming through outlining, writing and revising to feedback and evaluating, and reports only minor disagreement between them along with a clear lack of institutional preparedness.
Your marker probably agrees with you about the principle and still needs the declaration in order to act on it.
Citing generated content, and the similarity rule
Sometimes generated material is evidence rather than an aid, because your study is about what a system produced.
The library's guidance treats that as an ordinary citation with an unusual author: the organisation that made the model is the author, the version you used supplies the date, the reference entry describes it as a large language model, and long outputs go in an appendix so a reader can see the exact text under discussion.
Separately, the assignment requirements ask you to keep the similarity index of the individual report at or below fifteen per cent, state that no part may be copied from other sources without acknowledgement, and state that work may not have been submitted or be concurrently submitted for another course.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The two options a course outline can carry on generative tools
- 02
What the permission in force here does and does not cover
- 03
Declaring at submission and declaring inside the document
- 04
The four elements the university's guidance asks for
- 05
Use rather than amount as the trigger for the obligation
- 06
Invented references, and why one costs the credibility of thirty
- 07
Six stages of writing, and where educators and students draw the line
- 08
Citing generated content, with transcripts in an appendix
- 09
The similarity limit as a writing instruction
A declaration for two uses, one of which felt too small to mention
- 2Say why both uses are declarable.
- 3Write the first use with all four elements.
- 3Write the second use with all four elements.
Key terms
- Generative Tool
- Software that produces text, images or audio on request. The course outline decides per course whether such tools may be used in assessment tasks.
- Tool Use Declaration
- The statement naming which tools were used, for what purpose, with which prompts, and how the outputs were integrated. It is required in the report and in the presentation slides.
- Acknowledgement Statement
- The choice made at upload between declaring that a submission contains no generated material and declaring that it does and that the use is stated inside the work.
- Similarity Index
- The percentage of a submitted text matching sources in the checking service's database. The assignment requirements ask for fifteen per cent or below on the individual report.
- Fabricated Citation
- A reference produced by a generative tool that looks plausible and does not exist. One found by a marker costs the credibility of every other reference in the review.
- Academic Honesty Policy
- The university policy on honesty, responsibility and integrity that the course outline directs students to read and familiarise themselves with.
AI Tools in Research Work and Academic Honesty FAQ
Do I have to declare using a tool only to fix grammar?
Yes. The requirement is worded around which tools were used and how far, so the trigger is that a tool was used at all rather than how much it changed. A one sentence declaration naming the tool, the purpose, the prompt and what you did with the output satisfies it completely and takes a minute to write. Omitting it because the use felt trivial is the failure the instruction warns carries academic penalties.
Does the declaration go on the slides as well as in the report?
It goes in both. The instruction states that the statement must be included in the individual report and in the accompanying presentation slides, so a group that used a design tool to generate a slide layout still owes a declaration even though nothing written was generated. A footer slide naming the tool, the purpose, the prompt and the fact that no content was produced is enough.
How do I cite something a chatbot produced if my study is about what it produced?
Treat it as a citation with an unusual author. In the style the course requires, the organisation that made the model is the author and the version you used supplies the date, the reference list entry names the model and its version and describes it as a large language model, and a long output goes into an appendix so a reader can inspect the exact text.
Putting the transcript in an appendix also separates what the system said from what you concluded about it.
What actually gets me into trouble with the similarity check?
Pasting passages you intend to reword later, because those are the passages that survive into the draft when time runs short. Paraphrasing as you read and keeping the citation attached to the paraphrase in your notes prevents almost all of it.
The same requirements also state that no part of a submission may be copied from other sources without acknowledgement and that work may not have been submitted, or be concurrently submitted, for another course.
Assessment move
Open a three column note on the day you start reading and record every use of a generative tool as it happens: tool, prompt, what you did with the output. It takes seconds each time, it makes the required statement a transcription job, and it has a side effect worth more than the compliance, which is that seeing your own prompts listed tells you honestly how much of the thinking was yours.
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