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Use of Generative AI in PGR assessments

Your responsibility as a postgraduate researcher

The fundamental principle is that responsibility for all aspects of the work you submit for assessment remains with you as the author of your thesis.

Equally, any work you submit during your research degree candidature will be expected to maintain the same high standards of academic and research integrity. This guidance on the use of Gen AI tools will apply to the following:

  • your thesis submission
  • your transfer report as part of the transfer process
  • work submitted for your first formal progress report
  • work submitted for your annual progress review
  • drafts of work submitted to your supervisors for review and comment.

Where we talk about ‘work’ this could include text, data, results, computer code, art-works, performances or any work contributing to the practice element in a practice-based PhD, or other material you generate during your research degree studies.

How you will store or can share your work should be considered and documented as part of your Data Management Plan.

It is likely that you will prepare work for public dissemination though publication or conferences. Further guidance on publishable work is given in the Assessment criteria for research degrees and Gen AI section.

Consult your supervisor

You should always ask your supervisors about appropriate use of Gen AI. The University of Leeds categorises how you may use Gen AI with a three-tiered traffic light system (red, amber and green categories).

Discuss with your supervisor whether your intended use of Gen AI tools falls wholly or partially within the assessment categories. Make sure that the agreed use of Gen AI is recorded in the GRAD supervision meeting notes.

Microsoft Copilot and other tools

The University strongly recommends using Copilot (instead of Chat GPT, Clause etc) which is available with a full Microsoft licence. It is very important to be careful about the information you provide to generative AI tools; using Copilot minimises data protection and privacy risks.

Log in with your University login details to ensure you are working within the Enterprise version, which means the information you provide to Copilot is not stored or used except to answer your prompts.

You can find more information about Copilot at the following:

If you believe that you will need to use a Gen AI tool other than Copilot please discuss with your Supervisors in the first instance. You must:

  • carefully consider the information you plan to share with the Gen AI tool
  • read the guidance on Data Restrictions and Security
  • undertake due diligence on the tool you plan to use.

We cannot advise on the safe use of individual AI tools and it is your responsibility to complete any due diligence process.

Any use of Copilot, or other Gen AI tool, must remain within the traffic-light categories for using Generative AI (Gen AI) during a research degree candidature.

Ethics

As a postgraduate researcher, you will be expected to understand the wider ethical, legal and societal factors involved in responsible research and innovation.

If you will be using Gen AI for tasks such as data analysis you will need to consider any steps needed to adhere to your ethics application (informing the research participants, making data anonymous etc).

There may also be situations where you will need to amend an ethics application as the research study progresses, to take account of changes in your use of Gen AI. You will be responsible for taking any steps need to secure an amendment to any earlier ethics review, if there have been any changes to the methodology or the usage of AI.

Please see the University guidance on AI use in research, including:

Prompt data and outputs

You should never provide any Gen AI tool sensitive or personal data in any prompt or content.

To minimise data protection and privacy risks, the University strongly recommends using Copilot (instead of Chat GPT, Clause etc) which is available with a full Microsoft licence.

Please read the guidance on the following:

Recording your use of Gen AI

Wherever possible, save copies of your inputs and the outputs that the Gen AI tool produces for you. You may be asked to provide this information as part of your assessment or in any academic misconduct process.

Keeping records of your process is a principle of good research practice. This applies to your interactions with Gen AI tools in the same way as it would for other record keeping, eg lab books or keeping drafts of work and annotations from your supervisors.

In some cases it may not be practical to keep a record of every iteration of your inputs/outputs eg where the tool is being used to assist with coding and where the prompt may need refining multiple times. In these cases, discuss with your supervisors how best to document your interactions. These might include:

  • sufficiently detailed notes recording the kinds of interactions that took place, the results it produced and how you used them, but not necessarily a record of every single input/output iteration
  • a few exemplars/recordings (copies of inputs/outputs) that can help illustrate the approach you took
  • a more detailed acknowledgment in your thesis to explain how you used GenAI tools so your approach is open and transparent to your examiners.

The records you keep will help you when it comes to writing your thesis and your viva, but you are also protecting yourself in the event of any challenges about whether the work is your own.

You take final responsibility for the work you submit. As part of the examination you should be prepared to provide this information, explain and justify the ways in which you have used GenAI tools to support your research process.

Literature review

You might be able to use Gen AI tools to support the literature review process under amber and green categories of assessment. You must critically evaluate any results to address the weaknesses of Gen AI. When your thesis is assessed you will be expected to have engaged with, and critically evaluated, the existing scholarship in your discipline. You will need to present this in your own words and demonstrate your understanding of the literature in relation to your research.

Developing code

Some Gen AI tools will take code from other sources (such as GitHub and Zenodo) without referencing the authors of the original codes/ algorithms, even though many of these have opensource IP statements that often request acknowledgement of original authorship.

Carefully consider the use of Gen AI tools in the development of code. Be mindful of the risks associated with copyright and ownership and the expectations for the ethical and responsible use of AI.

Bear in mind your assessment criteria and the expectations for novelty, critical ability and engagement with ethical context and implications of your research. In some cases, you might be expected to have intellectual ownership of your code. You will certainly be expected to take responsibility for its accuracy.

Proper attribution

As a postgraduate researcher, you should always make sure that the Research integrity and Academic integrity principles are followed in any work that you do. You must declare your use of any Gen AI tool whenever you submit work for assessment throughout your research degree studies.

In all cases, you are required to truthfully acknowledge what elements of any work you submit are your own work or ideas, and what has come from other sources – including acknowledging use of Gen AI.

External accreditation

If your research degree programme will be accredited by an external, professional body you will also need to make sure you comply with any guidance on the use of Gen AI issued by the professional body, in addition to the guidance given here.