Generative AI and Education at the University of Bath
Generative AI (GenAI) is changing the ways in which knowledge is produced and circulates, with significant implications for education. The University of Bath’s approach is future-facing and pragmatic.
Our approach:
Critical engagement, not refusal
In a world in which GenAI exists, often invisibly, critical engagement is essential for universities. We will explore opportunities for AI-enabled progress whilst maintaining our core values and academic standards, and whilst recognising that significant questions remain about the cognitive, environmental and ethical impacts of these technologies.
Trust, not policing
The Two-Lane framework is intentionally minimal. It gives staff and students the freedom to determine the parameters of effective and responsible use within their disciplines. We should maintain meaningful space for critique and informed avoidance where these are educationally defensible, and our aspiration is a culture based on trust, not suspicion and policing.
Responsibility remains with humans
Academic integrity and validity remain paramount. Students and staff are responsible for their work at all times, regardless of whether that work was produced through interaction with GenAI tools, and must retain critical understanding of all outputs. Teaching should foreground that responsibility, from verifying sources to identifying bias.
The two-lane framework
Every summative assessment sits in one of two lanes.
The Two-Lane framework replaces the ABC classification used at Bath until 2025/26. All references to ABC should be removed from unit and assessment materials for 2026/27. Two-lane approaches to GenAI and assessment originated with colleagues in the Pacific Rim and have since been adopted widely across the higher education sector.
Open Lane
Students have access to GenAI tools, and their use is permitted. Students retain academic responsibility for all their submitted work. Teaching and assessment guidance support effective and responsible use, or avoidance, as appropriate.
Closed Lane
GenAI tools are not permitted. Assessment conditions are designed to prevent any use of GenAI.
The Test
An assessment is closed lane only where the assessment conditions reliably prevent students from using generative AI tools. Where they do not, the assessment is open lane. Classification as open lane does not in itself imply that GenAI use should be significant within the task.
Academic integrity in each lane
Open lane
Use of GenAI in the open lane is not in itself academic misconduct (QA53 5.10). Guidance as to the effective and responsible use of GenAI in a particular assessment should be communicated in the unit teaching, materials and/or assessment brief. Students remain responsible for the work they submit.
GenAI may be the means through which a student commits one or more of the offences defined in QA53; most commonly plagiarism (presenting unacknowledged paraphrasing of sources, including by a GenAI tool, as their own) and fabrication (invented references, data or evidence). Staff should not attempt to identify whether GenAI was used, only whether the work shows evidence of one of the defined offences, and student work should not be uploaded to AI detection tools.
Closed lane
Any use of a GenAI tool in a closed-lane assessment is a breach of the assessment conditions and is investigated as academic misconduct under Regulation 19 — as a breach of examination regulations. This is consistent with existing rules on, for example, use of a mobile phone during an examination.
What unit convenors need to do
Before students undertake their first summative assessment in your unit:
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Confirm the lane of each assessment in the unit, and state this clearly in the assessment brief (open lane) and directly to students (closed lane). |
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For closed-lane assessments, explain the conditions, confirm that use of a GenAI tool would constitute academic misconduct, and be prepared to explain why the learning outcomes should be demonstrated without recourse to these tools. |
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For open-lane assessments, make clear that use of GenAI is not in itself misconduct, that students remain responsible for the work they submit, and that GenAI may be the means through which plagiarism, fabrication or collusion occurs. |
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Provide unit-specific guidance on effective and responsible use of GenAI. Where non-use is educationally desirable, for example in developing autonomous mastery of core concepts or practices, explain and justify it. |
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Direct students to the Skills Centre and Library resources on academic integrity, AI literacy, and the acknowledgement and referencing of GenAI use. Communicate to students that declaring GenAI use is expected good practice and create opportunities within the unit for them to do so in a meaningful way. |
At course level, Directors of Studies should review the overall balance of closed- and open-lane assessment across the programme, as well as its alignment with course intended learning outcomes.
Where to go next
Guidance for staff, and resources to point your students towards.
