Artificial Intelligence and Assessment
Artificial Intelligence FAQ
Artificial intelligence (AI) technology recognises patterns to learn techniques and processes to solve problems and perform tasks in a way that is similar to human intelligence. Generative artificial intelligence services such as ChatGPT can generate content in response to prompts from users.
Generative AI involves searching information it has access to so it can produce results. This means that AI uses other people’s work to produce content, however it does not credit this contribution. This violates academic integrity through plagiarism and contract cheating, as by claiming AI output as your own work, you are also claiming other people’s work as your own.
AI is also not reliably accurate. A generative AI tool is only as good as the data it has been trained on. Many tools have been trained using resources that may be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or biased which then impacts the quality of the tool's responses.
If your Course Coordinator has instructed that the use of AI is permitted in your assessment, it still must be acknowledged in accordance with academic integrity practices. A failure to correctly reference AI can result in academic misconduct penalties, even if AI has been permitted by your Course Coordinator. To find how to correctly reference artificial intelligence in accordance with your course’s referencing system, see these UniSQ referencing guidelines.
The use of spelling and grammar checkers inbuilt into Microsoft Word or other softwares are permitted. This is because they are only proofreading your work and only making limited suggested changes relating to spelling, grammar, clarity, and conciseness.
The use of writing assistants that use AI-powered writing assistants such as Grammarly Premium are not permitted. This is because the writing assistants can generate passages of text or rewrite your work for you. If you use them, you are using someone else’s work and claiming it as your own which violates academic integrity through plagiarism and contract cheating.
The difference between using spelling and grammar checking tools and using generative AI is comparable to having a friend proofread your assignment and having a friend write (or rewrite) your assignment – one is making small improvements on your own work; another is claiming someone else’s work as your own. Academic writing and paraphrasing are core skills you need to learn as a student and outsourcing this to a third-party website or app inhibits your learning process.