Academic integrity
Academic integrity refers to the values that underpin everything you do in your university studies. It includes concepts like honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. To succeed at university by studying with academic integrity, you need to understand, develop and practise academic skills, including: correct referencing, avoiding plagiarism, critical thinking and the ability to find and evaluate sources.
AI should be viewed as a tool that can aid learning and should be used in an ethical way. Do not copy word-for-word or claim any AI-generated content as your own work. This is plagiarism.
Are students allowed to use ChatGPT and other AI tools?
Consult and follow Stellenbosch University's guidelines and position statement:
See also SU’s AI-Mediated Multimedia Guide (While the primary focus is on AI text-to-image generation, it also includes recommendations for websites offering audio and video generation.)
Faculty Arts and Social Sciences : see Student Guidelines down below
Accountability (including the ideas of acknowledgement and attribution)
You are responsible for what you create and how it impacts others and society. AI tools don't have accountability. It is thus your responsibility to ensure that work submitted under your name is factually correct.
Authenticity
You may use AI tools to assist where relevant, but not to complete the assignment on your behalf.
Fairness
Your use of AI tools/systems should be ethical and responsible and should comply with academic integrity standards
Transparency
You should clearly and honestly declare the use of AI tools and their outputs as well as the extent of the use.
A prompt is your way of asking the AI tool a question. Good prompts lead to more meaningful and useful answers and saves time. Bad prompts may result in irrelevant or nonsensical outputs.
According to Leo S Lo's CLEAR Framework for Prompt Engineering, prompts should be
Concise and clear
Logical, i.e. structured and coherent
Explicit, providing precise instructions regarding the desired output format, content, or scope
Adaptive: be flexible and try different approaches based on the output provided by the AI tool
Reflective: continuous evaluation and improvement of prompts
For the full text with examples of prompts, see Lo, L.S. (2023). The CLEAR path: A framework for enhancing information literacy through prompt engineering. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 49(4), 102720–. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102720
The Prompt Engineering Guide by DAIR.AI provides more techniques and guidelines for prompt engineering.
ChatGPT (for brainstorming): An AI chatbot by OpenAI, used to generate ideas, and explore concepts interactively.
Claude: An AI assistant by Anthropic, designed for conversational tasks, drafting, and providing detailed responses.
IdeaMap.ai: A creative AI platform for brainstorming and organising ideas into actionable plans or visual formats.
Perplexity: An AI-powered search and answer tool that provides concise and accurate information by combining web search and contextual understanding.
SciSpace: An AI tool for researchers that simplifies academic papers, explains concepts, and enhances research understanding.
Research Rabbit is a powerful citation-based literature mapping tool. By adding one or more foundational 'seed' papers to your account, the tool identifies additional relevant papers aligned with the topics and references you've selected. This makes it an excellent resource for conducting comprehensive literature searches and reviews.
