Faculty Guidlines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Academic Coursework and Assessments
General Principles
The use of generative AI in academic research, especially in assessment elements, is not necessarily prohibited; rather, it requires compliance with some fundamental requirements. Students must be aware that they are fully responsible for the integrity and correctness of the content produced for their examination submissions. Current AI programs and systems frequently fail to comply with the stringent standards and principles of academic scholarship, as the information produced may be incorrect, incomplete, misleading, problematic with copyright, or deficient in transparency. The use of inaccurate passages and information could result in significant qualitative issues in the impacted assignments and assessments. Violations of academic norms directly impact the corresponding examinations. Therefore, content and passages produced by AI require comprehensive verification and validation by the user. Moreover, everything produced with the assistance of AI must be properly and carefully cited (even if the facts and text segments have been paraphrased). Lecturers have the authority to disallow the use of generative AI for specific examinations and courses.
Formal Requirements
The determination of formal requirements regarding the use of generative AI within the scope of assessments rests with the lecturers. The Dean's Office issues the following guidelines as a recommendation:
- Content and text passages created using generative AI must be clearly identified through citations. Recognized style guides for academic texts provide initial guidelines regarding the citation of generative AI:
- When artificial intelligence systems and programs are used as auxiliary tools, a declaration must be appended to the relevant work specifying which generative AI programs were utilized, the manner of their use, and the impact these tools had on the results.
- To ensure compliance with academic quality standards (specifically transparency and reproducibility) the complete prompts as well as the corresponding AI outputs and responses must be attached to the respective works in the form of an appendix. (This requirement may be simplified if the programs and systems utilized facilitate the sharing of work results or chat histories via links accessible to third parties. In such instances, the relevant content may also be substantiated via direct hyperlinks).
- Lecturers are authorized to adapt or reduce the documentation and citation obligations described above within the context of individual examinations and courses. Such modifications must be communicated and announced to students accordingly.
- Lecturers are authorized to prohibit the use of generative AI in the completion of assessment components. This prohibition must be communicated and announced to students accordingly.
The use of generative AI as an aid for the correction of spelling, expression, or translation is currently permitted and does not require comprehensive documentation.