ABC Assessment Categorisations Guidance and Template Text

When writing assessment briefs for Type B assignments, where GenAI is permitted as an assistive tool for specific defined processes, we advise thinking carefully about the following principles:

1. Be very clear on when and where GenAI can productively be used (the bulleted list of possible uses below may help with this.)
2. Provide a clear rationale for why you are encouraging the use of GenAI in certain instances or discouraging it in others. This will help gain student buy-in, build trust and help discourage any breaches of academic integrity principles.
3. When teaching, model productive uses of GenAI for your students for certain aspects of the assignment. Students are learning about GenAI and are not necessarily expert in its use.
4. Encourage students to use GenAI in a targeted and reflective way rather than throughout their assignment. This will help them assess the benefits and limitations of GenAI for different uses, as well as helping them foster their own independent criticality.
5. Take a course-wide approach when determining when and how students may use GenAI. It is important that students become familiar with the various uses for GenAI in their discipline, but also that they are able to develop a broad base of academic skills without the use of GenAI. One way of doing this might be to have a mixture of Type A, B and C assessments and this balanced approach will help make students more effective in completing their Type B assignments.
6. Consider how student use of GenAI relates to your intended learning outcomes (ILOs). In Type B assessments, GenAI may be used as an assistive tool to support students’ attainment of their ILOs; however, the suite of assessments they undertake during their programme of study should enable students to demonstrate that they are not over-reliant on GenAI use to meet ILOs. If you would like a discussion of this in your particular context, please contact the CLT.

Linked to the different stages involved in producing an assignment, here are some possible uses of GenAI that you may want to consider permitting, encouraging or discouraging. These are rough headings, so we advise supplying students with further details when communicating them in class, assessment briefs, course handbooks or elsewhere:

Assessment preparation:

• Initial idea generation
• Creating a format or outline
• Summarising notes
• Creating an initial list of sources

Production:

• Analysing data
• Generating text, images, models or multimedia elements
• Performing calculations or creating code

Editing:

• Refining, enhancing, or correcting text, images, models, multimedia elements, coding or formulae. 
• Improving spelling, punctuation and grammar
• Ensuring the tone of the writing is appropriate for the assignment
• Formatting references