UQ’s rules for using AI
You can use Artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly to support your study in UQ courses, but there may be restrictions on the use of AI in your course assessment.
You should always check your course profile to find out if AI is allowed. AI use will be specified for each assessment task.
That means you have to check each assessment item because assessment items in the same course might have different rules about how AI can be used.
Watch UQ's rules for using AI (YouTube, 1m 28s):
- Do you know the guidelines on AI use for the assessment task?
- Follow the rules on AI use outlined in your course profile.
- Ensure you are acknowledging and referencing AI use based on your course coordinators instructions.
- Always ask your course coordinator if you are unsure.
- Do you have a plan to keep track of your AI use?
- Map out the ways using AI can help with your assessment. Prompts to help you with assessments has ideas to help you.
- Document and record AI use every time you use it for the assessment.
- Keep copies of all your AI conversations about the assessment.
- Are you clear on your ethical standards in using AI?
- Check the AI tools you use align with your ethical and moral principles.
- Apply critical judgement to all outputs of AI.
- Stay focused on bias inherent in AI.
- Are you clear on discipline-specific approaches and critical thinking needed to use AI well?
- Fact-check everything AI generates and cross reference with scholarly and trusted sources in your discipline.
- Follow discipline-specific protocols for citing scholarly works.
- Do you have a plan to ensure the final work submitted is your work?
- Always read and review AI-generated outputs. Never copy and paste AI-generated outputs into your assessment.
- Rephrasing AI-generated output and adding it to your assessment is not enough for it to be considered your work.
- Ensure you have learned the knowledge, skills, and capabilities expected in your assessment submission.
- Keep careful records of the work you did to complete the assessment, including notes, drafts and reference sources.
Download the Checklist for planning AI use in your assessment (PDF, 192.25 KB).
This helpful checklist was adapted from General principles for use of generative AI co-created by University of Sydney students and staff. Shared by the University of Sydney under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence.
UQ’s position on AI is that:
“The ongoing advances in Generative AI technologies present both opportunities and challenges for teaching and assessment. While protecting academic integrity is critical, we also acknowledge the increasing prevalence of AI in our everyday lives, making it critical for us to help students to understand its ethical and effective use.”
Professor Kris Ryan, University of Queensland Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic.
In your course profiles, for each assessment, you will see 1 of these 3 options:
- Cannot use AI: AI is prohibited.
- Cannot use AI: AI is prohibited through in-person assessment (e.g., exams, oral presentation)
- Can use AI: AI is allowed and must be acknowledged.
The current UQ rules on AI use are:
- You must not use AI in your assessment task if your course profile states that it is not allowed.
- You can use AI in an assessment if it is allowed by your course coordinator.
- If AI use is allowed, you must follow the instructions specified in the assessment task.
- If AI use is allowed, you must acknowledge and reference your use.
It could be viewed as cheating if you:
- use AI in any assessment task when it is not allowed
- don't acknowledge or reference your use of AI when it is allowed in an assessment task.
The Student Code of Conduct outlines expectations for all UQ students, including academic integrity and misconduct rules.
All members of the UQ community have a responsibility to support and uphold the values of academic integrity. As a student you are a member of the UQ community.
Many students are concerned about breaking UQ’s AI rules and want clear guidance.
To check if you are violating UQ’s AI rules, ask yourself these three questions for every individual assessment task:
- Is this assessment task my intellectual and academic work?
- Have I followed the instructions of my course coordinator about using and acknowledging or referencing AI?
- Am I submitting work that demonstrates my learning, skills, and abilities?
If you answer no to any of these questions, then you could be breaking UQ’s AI rules. Why? Because:
- inappropriate use of AI is academic misconduct
- inappropriate acknowledgment of AI use is academic misconduct.
Academic misconduct is a disciplinary offence. It involves a range of unethical behaviours that give a student an unfair and unearned advantage over their peers.
When AI use is allowed in your assessments:
- You must acknowledge or reference the use of AI as outlined by the course coordinator.
- You should know AI’s limitations and always check the accuracy of any facts, references, quotes or edits generated by AI.
- You should consider the potential for biases in the AI system and review any materials generated with scepticism.
- You should check the literature in the discipline to ensure scholarly work and other’s ideas are appropriately recognised.
When using AI in your assessments, you are responsible for your learning and the work submitted.
Rules for the use of AI ensure that all students, regardless of their background or access to advanced tools, have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their true abilities.
By preventing unfair advantages and encouraging genuine effort, UQ’s AI rules help maintain equity and protect the value of your UQ education. A degree from UQ is valuable, to protect this value it is important we work to maintain academic standards.
These rules support the ongoing trust in our academic programs, ensuring that, as a UQ graduate, you are respected for the knowledge, skills and qualities you have genuinely developed.
When completing your assessment, think about the purpose of the task. Then, if AI use is permitted, decide how you can use AI effectively and appropriately.
Understanding the aim of an assessment task can help you respond more effectively and engage with integrity, ensuring the work that matters is your own.
Thinking about ownership of your learning and assessments is important in the age of AI.
"I guess you need to have a little bit of ego in there. You have to be like - no, my thoughts are better and you know it comes from me. … it's my work. If it's not coming from me, if it's just somebody else or collecting information for me, then it's not really me."
Mam, UQ focus group 2024.
Using AI in some tasks may undermine your ability to do the work yourself. For example, some assessment tasks might be designed to test your ability to:
- write in a particular style
- code
- solve an equation
- read and summarise literature
- critique a theory, artwork, or creative performance
- recall and apply essential knowledge quickly.
While AI might be able to complete tasks for you, it is your responsibility to spend the time on learning and then completing the assessment for yourself.
Even if AI is permitted, you have to decide it is smarter to study first and then use AI to test your knowledge or check your work.
AI can support your learning when used well and when it is allowed to be used in your assessment.
All over Australian higher education, students and staff are finding helpful ways AI can support assessment. As one example, students and staff at the University of Sydney have shared AI prompts to support AI use:
- as a critical friend
- to get started on an assessment and planning study
- to engage with the literature
- to support analyses
- to generate content
- to edit
- for feedback to guide improving work.
When AI is allowed in your assessments, you might want to read the AI prompt ideas from the University of Sydney.
UQ students shared confusion about the effectiveness of AI detection software and how such tools are used at UQ in the Student Perspectives on AI in Higher Education project. You might also be unsure about AI detection.
This section provides you with clarity about AI detection at UQ. In short:
- UQ has AI detection that works with Turnitin in Learn.UQ.
- UQ understands AI detection, including through Turnitin, is flawed and not reliable. However, an AI detection report, together with other evidence, may suggest academic misconduct has occurred and that an investigation process is warranted.
AI detection software alone cannot be used to:
- make a misconduct case against students
- reduce marks on your assessment.
Claims of AI misuse must include more evidence than a Turnitin AI detection report.
It is good practice to always keep careful records of the work you did to complete an assessment task. For example, keep notes and early drafts, annotated reference sources, and perhaps also use version control on drafts. This way, if you are suspected of using AI inappropriately when you haven’t, you have evidence to support that you did the required work
To reduce our need to detect misuse of AI, UQ is shifting to a more secure assessment approach where we know students have used AI responsibly or allowing AI where we cannot secure our assessment tasks.