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 this 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.

Prompt data and outputs

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

Please read the guidance on the Data Restrictions and Security page and the IT Security Considerations on the use of ChatGPT and AI LLM Engines.

When you use Gen AI tools for your work, always 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.

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:

• Ethics review
• Data restrictions and security
• Copyright and ownership.

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 in the work you submit throughout your research degree studies for assessment.

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.