To begin, it may be helpful to decipher the difference between citation and documentation.
- Citation: Following the preferred citation practices of the course (APA, MLA, Chicago), citation should be used when quoting GenAI content. Depending on the context (refer to “Is the use of GenAI academic misconduct?” below), formal citation may also be required when repurposing text or ideas generated by the GenAI tool in one’s own work.
- Documentation: Documentation is less formal than citation. Consider whether asking students to document the use of GenAI makes sense within their context. This may include asking students to note its use in the introduction of an essay or within the methodology section of a research paper. Documentation may include asking students to attach their chat log with a GenAI tool as an appendix. While documentation is a good practice to encourage with your students, there may be some cases where it is not to be expected (for example, students using it to parse out or rephrase complex essay or assignment questions or instructions). Expectations for documentation should be clearly stated at the beginning of each assessment or activity.
The University of Waterloo has documentation templates that can be downloaded which can be found at the following link: University of Waterloo. (2023). AI and the Writing Process – Documenting and Citing.
Additional Resources
- Centennial College. (2023). APA style: generative artificial intelligence (ChatGPT).
- Centennial College (2023). MLA style: generative artificial intelligence (ChatGPT).
- The Chicago Manual of Style. (n.d.). Citation, documentation of sources.
- American Psychological Association. (2023). Artificial intelligence and machine learning.
- American Psychological Association. (2023, April 7). How to cite ChatGPT.
Using GenAI does not imply academic misconduct. In addition to the guidelines, below are a few considerations:
- What are your expectations regarding student use of GenAI (i.e., when do you allow versus prohibit its use)?
- Have your expectations been explicitly shared with students regarding which GenAI tools are permitted in the course, activity, and/or assessment?
- How were student submissions assessed for the use of GenAI, and were students aware this was happening?
- Were students informed of how to cite or document their use of GenAI?
- If you, as an instructor, clearly specify that the use of GenAI is not permitted in a course or on an assignment, then its use would be considered as an “unauthorized aid” under section 5.1 of the Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Policy (AC100-11).
The use of GenAI may also be considered plagiarism if, as per the policy, content generated by GenAI is represented or passed off as their own original work: as per the policy, plagiarism is presenting “the ideas, writing, artistic work, creations, etc. of another person or entity (including those generated by Artificial Intelligence or AI tools or websites) as one’s own. This includes the presentation of all or part of another person’s work as something one has written, paraphrasing another’s writing without proper acknowledgement or representing another’s work or creation as one’s own.”
If you suspect a breach has occurred, you are encouraged to meet with the student to discuss and attempt to come to a consensus on the matter. Please reference the Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Procedures (AC101-11).
It is important to foster open and ongoing communication around the evolving nature of GenAI tools and technologies with students and around the permissibility of GenAI tools within your course. Since students will be navigating different GenAI expectations in multiple courses, and even between assignments within a single course, clear and transparent communication is essential. Consider including a course-level statement in your course outline as well as individual assignment-level guidelines on each and every assignment. Ideally, these statements will clearly communicate the following:
- if, how and when GenAI tools can be used;
- why that decision was made and how GenAI use supports or negatively impacts the pedagogical goals of the course or assignment;
- any details outlining student responsibilities (i.e., if/how citation should be completed).
In addition to these written statements, your course and assignment-level GenAI guidelines should be reviewed with students to ensure understanding and to provide an opportunity for dialogue and questions.
Unlike plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin that checks the similarity of work against verifiable sources, GenAI detection software (including the AI detection tool in Turnitin) is unreliable and unverifiable. GenAI detection is known to produce false positives (i.e., flagging content not generated by GenAI), and false negatives (failing to flag content that has been generated by GenAI (refer to this article from Vanderbilt University)). AI detection has also been shown to flag the work of multilingual students disproportionately (refer to this article for example). There is currently no reliable way to detect GenAI usage.
As noted, sharing your students’ work in unlicensed third-party tools without the student’s permission also raises privacy issues (see Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act) and, in many cases, violates the terms of use for the tools. A student’s work is their intellectual property.
If you suspect a student has used GenAI against your expectations or in violation of Centennial College’s Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Policy, you are encouraged to meet with the student to discuss and attempt to come to a consensus on the matter. Please refer to the Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Procedures (AC101-11).
Myers, A. (2023, May 15). AI-Detectors biased against non-native English writers.
Coley, M. (2023, August 16). Guidance on AI detections and why we’re disabling Turnitin’s AI detector.
Foster open and ongoing communication around the changing nature of GenAI tools and technologies with students. Do not assume students are aware of or are engaging with GenAI. Establish a base understanding of GenAI, its potentials, limitations and concerns with students at the start of a semester. Provide or co-construct clear responsibilities for both student and faculty use including critical analysis of outputs and citation and documentation practices.
The Centre for Faculty Development and Teaching Innovation and the Libraries have put together a selection of slides that include helpful prompts to guide you in customizing the resource for your course. You can make a copy and include it in your course to help facilitate a conversation on
- GenAI tools: what they are and how they work;
- limitations and concerns about using GenAI tools; and
- what students need to know about GenAI tools in your course.
The slides are available at the link below:
- Easter, J. & Demacio, P. (2023). Talking to students about Generative AI.
For the purpose of these guidelines, the following definitions are used:
- Confidential information: any information that was not intended for public use.
- Personal information: any personally identifiable information or “recorded information about an individual” (FIPPA, 1990).
- Copyright: “a legal concept that protects a person's economic and moral rights to any literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works they create. Only copyright holders can reproduce, distribute, and share these works with others, or permit others to do so” (Centennial College. 2023).
- Intellectual property: “any form of knowledge or expression created by human intellect that can be owned by a person or group. It includes, but is not limited to, inventions, discoveries, know-how, show-how, processes, unique materials, copyrightable works, original data and other creative works which have value. It includes that which is protectable by statute or legislation, such as Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Trade Secrets. It also includes the physical embodiments of intellectual effort, for example, models, machines, devices, designs, apparatus, instrumentation, circuits, computer programs and visualizations, biological materials, chemicals, other compositions of matter, plants and records of research” (Centennial College, 2012).
When a student declines the use of GenAI, it is valuable to have a conversation with them to understand their reasoning behind their decision.
If students would rather not engage with GenAI, the following alternatives may be considered:
- Faculty may provide a GenAI generated output as part of the assessment/activity for the student to build upon or work with.
- If the work can be done in partners or groups, delegate the GenAI interactions to other group members.
- Faculty may provide a version of the assessment/activity that does not require GenAI involvement.
- While the incorporation of GenAI into a course is the informed, professional decision of the faculty, students also have the choice to decline using GenAI at the assessment/activity level.
For additional information about reimagining assessments in the world of GenAI, please see the following:
- Demacio, P. (2023, November 6). Reimagining assessment in the world of GenAI.
- Centre for Faculty Development and Teaching Innovation, Centennial College. (2023). Generative artificial intelligence in teaching and learning.
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, November 20). Teaching and learning in higher education: What is ChatGPT?
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, November 23). Academic integrity for students: ChatGPT and artificial intelligence.
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, August 31). MLA Style: ChatGPT.
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, November 10). APA Style: Generative Artificial Intelligence (ChatGPT).
- Demacio, P. (2023, November 6). Reimagining assessment in the world of AI.
- Easter, J., Demacio, P. (2023). Talking to students about Generative AI.
- McAdoo, Timothy. American Psychology Association. (2023, April 7). How to cite ChatGPT.
- Centennial College. (2023, March 9). Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Policy. https://centennialcollege.widen.net/s/svqnltm9tc/ac100-11-academic-honesty-and-plagiarism-policy
- Centennial College. (2023, March 9). Academic Honesty and Plagiarism Procedures. https://centennialcollege.widen.net/s/tqkjk5bk8k/ac101-11-academic-honesty-and-plagiarism-procedures-and-breach-report-form
- Centennial College. (2012, April). Intellectual Property Policy. https://centennialcollege.widen.net/s/2qjtjqnhjr
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, October 31). Copyright. https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/c.php?g=592384&p=4097292
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, November 20). Teaching and learning in higher education: What is ChatGPT? https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/teaching/ChatGPT
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, November 23). Academic integrity for students: ChatGPT and artificial intelligence. https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/c.php?g=723273&p=5279723
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, August 31). MLA Style: ChatGPT. https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/c.php?g=588095&p=5303585
- Centennial College Libraries. (2023, November 10). APA Style: Generative Artificial Intelligence (ChatGPT). https://libraryguides.centennialcollege.ca/c.php?g=584090&p=5280720
- Centre for Faculty Development and Teaching Innovation, Centennial College. (2023). Generative artificial intelligence in teaching and learning. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/ccgenerativeai/
- Coley, M. (2023, August 16). Guidance on AI detections and why we’re disabling Turnitin’s AI detector. https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/2023/08/16/guidance-on-ai-detection-and-why-were-disabling-turnitins-ai-detector/
- Demacio, P. (2023, November 6). Reimagining assessment in the world of GenAI. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mKxQMaNpEQy2ptrEpyg0RljjzHxu_BARmIyR7vaWHVQ/edit#slide=id.g26022e32400_0_94
- Easter, J. & Demacio, P. (2023). Talking to students about Generative AI. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/11QUxxetGWcwn7QmQDV6GlKLGxhEZ3slWtH7293Kk_kY/edit#slide=id.g27f22a957a8_2_69
- Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. (1990), c. F.31. https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90f31#BK2
- McAdoo, Timothy. American Psychology Association. (2023, April 7). How to cite ChatGPT. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1mKxQMaNpEQy2ptrEpyg0RljjzHxu_BARmIyR7vaWHVQ/edit#slide=id.g26022e32400_0_94
- Myers, A. (2023, May 15). AI-Detectors biased against non-native English writers. https://hai.stanford.edu/news/ai-detectors-biased-against-non-native-english-writers
- University of Waterloo. (2023). AI and the Writing Process – Documenting and Citing. https://uwaterloo.ca/writing-and-communication-centre/Resources-AI-Citing
This document was informed by national and provincial post-secondary institutional guidelines and recommendations on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence and in consultation with Centennial College faculty.
This work licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes only and only so long as attribution is given to the original source.