Skip to main content

Ethical use of AI

It is your responsibility to ensure that all your activities using AI are carried out ethically and within the University's regulations. Please also refer to the staff guidance on the Secretariat webpages.

University ethics approval

All researchers must carry out an ethical review through the established faculty research ethics committee (FREC) procedure for research that has an ethical aspect. Currently, the use or development of AI tools does not, in itself, require you to carry out an ethical review. However, there may be other aspects of your research which do need ethical review.

The governance of research that uses or develops AI tools is currently under review. In future some types of AI research may require a full ethical review. Any policy changes will be communicated to all researchers.

Academic integrity

All work, either presented for assessment at the University of Leeds or representing the results of research, must comply with University of Leeds principles and regulations of research integrity.

Declaration of AI use

All material that is wholly or partially generated, modified or proof-read using an AI tool should be declared clearly in the document in which it occurs, whether the document is for internal or external use.

At the moment there is no standard method. However, some have included the:

  • user’s name
  • date the AI tool was used
  • name and version of the AI software
  • publisher of the AI software
  • whether the output has been validated.

You may wish to consult the guidelines for taught students and postgraduate researchers on acknowledging use of Generative AI.

Recording prompt texts

Prompt texts determine how the Gen AI tool creates its response. Different prompts produce different results. If the prompt texts are recorded and shared, then others are able to understand more about the process of generating the response. This is similar to a researcher explaining their methodology clearly.

So including the prompt text used in any record of work where AI has been used is not compulsory, but will aid transparency, integrity and open research practices.

If the work is to be submitted for assessment, prompt text and outputs that the Gen AI tool has produced should be saved, as this may be needed as part of the assessment or in any academic misconduct process.

Related links