Acknowledging AI use

Acknowledging AI, which includes using tour SP&D sticker if applicable, is not an admission of misconduct. On the contrary, being transparent about your use of these tools demonstrates honesty, fairness, and academic integrity. It shows you are taking responsibility for your work and helps your tutors understand and support your learning.

Acknowledging the use of AI tools in your assessments is essential for maintaining academic integrity and transparency. By clearly indicating which parts of your work were generated or assisted by AI, you enable your tutors to provide more targeted and relevant feedback, focusing on your understanding, critical thinking, and original contributions.

Acknowledging your use of AI is important because it:

• Promotes integrity, honesty, and fairness in your work.
• Encourages you to critically evaluate AI-generated content and integrate it with your own insights.
• Helps tutors give targeted feedback based on your own contributions.
• Develops essential skills such as analysis, synthesis, and judgment.
• Prepares you for professional practice where transparency and accountability are valued.

Failure to correctly acknowledge AI use may be treated as misconduct.

For guidance on acceptable vs. unacceptable AI use, see Rules and Responsibilities.

Please note that additional requirements may be stipulated by a programme or by a module tutor for a specific assessment, but general guidance is to include a section titled "AI Acknowledgement" between the final paragraph of your work and the reference list.

In this Acknowledgment, you should provide the details of any AI tools used in the creation of the work. In each case you should include:

• The name and version of the AI system used (e.g. ChatGPT-4, Copilot).
• The URL of the AI tool.
• A brief description of what the tool was used for.

Examples of acknowledgements:

• Tool: ChatGPT-4 (https://chat.openai.com) – used to create an outline structure for this essay at the drafting stage.
• Tool: Microsoft Copilot (https://copilot.microsoft.com) – used to identify improvements in writing style, such as sentence structure, word choice, and tone.
• Tool: Midjourney (https://www.midjourney.com) – used to create the images included in this presentation, which serve as visual aids to support the main points.
• Tool: GitHub Copilot (https://github.com/features/copilot) – used to suggest improvements to sections of my code, which I then reviewed and revised.
• Tool: Elicit (https://elicit.org) – used to generate an initial map of related research papers, which I then checked and refined using LibrarySearch.
• Tool: WolframAlpha (https://www.wolframalpha.com) – used to generate a step-by-step explanation of a statistical test, which I then checked against my lecture notes.

By including your AI Acknowledgement, you are confirming that you've followed your assessment brief and you declare that all the statements made in the acknowledgement are an accurate and honest account of AI’s contribution to your work. If you have not used any AI tools in preparing your assessment, you do not need to include an acknowledgement section.

While it's important to acknowledge the use of AI tools that directly contribute to your work's content, ideas, or refinement of your work, there are some instances where other types of AI may not need to be declared or acknowledged. Examples include:

• Using AI tools to support your research process.
• Using AI for citation management or formatting support.
• Using AI to assist with note-taking.
• Using AI for time management or study planning.

However, this is only the default position. Your assessment brief always takes priority. Some modules or assessments may prohibit AI entirely, even for activities like planning or note organisation. If in doubt, acknowledge it. Transparency is always safer.

If you have approval to use assistive technology with AI features as part of your Support and Personal Development (S&PD) plan, do you still need to acknowledge its use?

To balance academic integrity with minimising the need for you to disclose your S&PD plan details, the university has implemented a 'support plan digital sticker' system. If you have an S&PD plan that includes the use of assistive technologies with AI features, the sticker informs markers that you are approved to use these technologies as part of your S&PD reasonable adjustments.

The rules for acknowledgment are:

• If you only use tools and features that are explicitly covered by your S&PD plan, you do not need to include an acknowledgement.
• If you use AI tools or features that are not listed on your plan, you must acknowledge this use following the general guidance on this page.
• If you use an approved tool for a purpose not covered by your plan, you must also acknowledge it.

The S&PD digital sticker only covers the specific tools and use cases approved as part of your reasonable adjustments.

Acknowledging and referencing are not the same.

• Acknowledging means being transparent about your use of AI in shaping your work (see examples above).
• Referencing means formally citing a source so others can trace and verify it.

Most of the time AI should only be acknowledged, not referenced.

For when a formal reference is required (e.g. quoting or critiquing AI output), see our dedicated page on Referencing AI.