Acknowledging Generative AI

As a student, acknowledging your sources is an important skill and habit to foster throughout your academic career. Sheridan's Academic Integrity Policy states that, "Sheridan expects that Students will only claim credit for their own ideas, writing, projects, and creations." As a result, acknowledging where others have contributed, or non-original ideas have been included in your work ensures your academic integrity is maintained. Responsible use of generative AI tools includes avoiding unfair academic advantage in any academic work. Learning how to maintain your integrity even in challenging circumstances will help you succeed not just in college, but in your future career as well.

First, let's be clear.

Most academics agree that generative AI:

  • has no real intelligence or subject expertise
  • cannot take responsibility for its output
  • cannot provide the exact same output for verification by others (unlike other types of sources, such as books, articles, images, etc.)

As a result, for the purposes of citation, generative AI tools are not generally listed as the author or creator in an in-text citation or reference list. Instead, cite the company that created the AI tool you used as the author (e.g., OpenAI, Microsoft Corporation, etc.).

When doing academic work, generative AI tools can be a good starting point to identify important points or topics, similar to how you might use Wikipedia. However, known for inaccuracies and factual errors (i.e., hallucinations), it's always important to verify and support any facts and claims made by a generative AI tool with more credible sources (e.g., business or organizational reports, scholarly articles, books, etc.) appropriate for your subject area.

Generative AI differs from other sources of information in the variety of ways in which it can be used to complete an assignment. While citations are useful for quotes, paraphrases, or copied content from a generative AI tool, additional methods of acknowledgement may be required when you use a generative AI tool to help you brainstorm ideas, identify sources, or edit your work. In essence, some kind of acknowledgement is required any time you use a generative AI tool to meaningfully assist in the creation of the work.

When generative AI has been used in multiple ways, more than one type of acknowledgement may be required. For example, if you quoted a generative AI tool and also used a generative AI tool to help you organize your main points, you may be required to include citations for the quote, and append a declaration and transcript of your conversation for the organizational task.

Since unauthorized use of a generative AI tool can result in a breach of academic integrity, and authorized usage and expectations often varies across institutions, disciplines, and courses, always confirm your professor's expectations and, if working in a group, your group members' expectations regarding generative AI usage and acknowledgement before engaging with a generative AI tool.

 

Choose from common types of acknowledgement.

Citations

When quoting, paraphrasing, or inserting content directly from a generative AI tool, provide citations following an established citation style. Find examples for generative AI citations from the Library citation guides:

Learn how to integrate summaries, paraphrases, and quotes more effectively in your writing.

Declarations

Declarations may be required when generative AI tools are used to assist a portion of the creation of the work (e.g., brainstorming, identifying sources, editing). Declarations are often added as a brief acknowledgement at the end of the assignment (before the references or works cited) or appended on a separate page (after the references or works cited) along with the full transcript of the conversation with the chatbot. Always be sure to follow the appropriate style requirements for appendices as outlined in your style guide (e.g., APA Style).

Declarations should:

  1. Identify the Tool: Specify the name of the GenAI tool used, such as ChatGPT, Copilot, or Claude.
  2. Describe the Task: Explain what tasks the AI tool helped you complete, such as brainstorming, writing sections of text, editing, or generating images.
  3. Provide Prompt Details: If the specific prompt you used is relevant to the context, include it in your acknowledgment.
  4. Explain Modifications: If you edited or modified the AI's output, indicate the extent of your edits in your acknowledgment.

Example Acknowledgement: Copilot by Microsoft Corporation was used to locate organizations related to this topic using the prompt "What organizations are involved in creating standards for academic integrity?" The list of organizations provided by Copilot were investigated and selected based on relevance to the topic.

For a more formalized acknowledgement statement, follow the AID Framework:

Transcripts

Whenever you use a generative AI tool for academic work, saving the transcripts of your conversation(s) as you work can be helpful, even if not required by your professor. 

In cases where transcripts are required by your professor, transcripts are most often added with a declaration as an appendix to your written assignment. Always be sure to follow the appropriate style requirements for appendices as outlined in your style guide (e.g., APA Style).

In some cases, such as creative works, presentations, webpages, etc., you may be able to insert a simple badge, often in the footer of the document or presentation, to indicate to what extent generative AI was used. For example:

badges
"Logos for transparent use of artificial intelligence" by Martine Peters, Université du Québec en Outaouais. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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