At Advance HE’s AI Symposium 2025, staff and students from Queen’s University Belfast showcased a student-designed, student-focused AI toolkit to clearly guide and highlight appropriate AI use.
Throughout history, many transformative technologies have acquired a pattern of initial fear or opposition, followed by reluctant but gradual acceptance. The current wave of powerful generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools has met with similar concerns and in higher education (HE) there are concrete worries as boundaries between student-generated content and AI-generated material blur (Richardson and Clesham, 2021).
The presence of GenAI will certainly change how staff assess and students learn, and while early adopters enthusiastically embraced AI tools, large segments of HE society remain wary. Staff raise concerns around academic integrity and students worry about what constitutes legitimate, ethical use of GenAI for assessments. For those who are encouraged to use this technology, there are worries around data privacy.
For all HE stakeholders, navigating AI-supported education presents significant opportunities and challenges suggesting a greater demand for comprehensive guidelines (Francis, Jones and Smith, 2025).
Declaration of Integrity: promoting transparency and accountability
At Advance HE’s AI Symposium 2025: Generative AI in higher education: Challenges, opportunities and risks, we showcased a student-designed, student-focused AI toolkit to address this, the result of which is a Declaration of Integrity for students to submit alongside assessments which clearly guides and highlights appropriate AI use. As suggested by Northampton’s “acknowledgement-based” approach, transparency and accountability must underpin any toolkit designed to promote ethical AI use (Lea, 2024).
In the Declaration/Disclosure statement, students are asked to clearly acknowledge AI assistance in their work. This transparency fosters a culture of accountability and academic integrity while simultaneously acknowledging AI’s constructive role.
The initial objectives for our AI toolkit were to encourage students’ appropriate use of AI, moving beyond simply policing plagiarism to support student autonomy, engagement and learning. As co-authors of this blog and toolkit, we highlight the need for AI training, also emphasised by students in other studies (Lea, 2024) as not all students are ‘digital natives’ and many have a strong preference for AI literacy support and training programmes. Such programmes and resources would teach students how to use AI effectively and ethically and engage them in critical discussions about AI’s broader societal impacts, biases, privacy implications and potential for misuse.
Personalised learning
Similar to practical applications highlighted by Sue Attewell from JISC, the toolkit emphasises AI’s utility in facilitating personalised learning. Our students report on the benefits of AI features in software like Anki for spaced repetition learning, or NotebookLM’s capacity to adapt course materials to individual learning preferences.
Ensuring equitable access
We highlighted the most popular tools and their uses in particular assessment types. Our choices centred on promoting platforms which were either free to use, or the institution held a licence for. Ethically, we would not advocate for the subscription-based models of premium AI services not under institutional license, a concern highlighted by a recent Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) survey as contributing to an emerging digital divide.
According to the HEPI poll, students with spare cash are significantly more likely to pay for more sophisticated technology to complete their academic work potentially exacerbating existing inequalities (Williams, 2024). Students who cannot afford these tools are thus disadvantaged indirectly influencing academic success. Such disparities necessitate a response from educational institutions to ensure equitable access, as suggested in both the HEPI report and Rahman and Saunders (2024).
As demonstrated at Westminster University, providing students with institutional access to services such as Grammarly can level the playing field, ensuring fairer outcomes and reducing equity gaps. Outside of any training programmes, institutional recognition of the multifactorial reasons contributing to a digital divide is crucial to maintaining fairness and equality.
Collaborative adaptation
Adopting guidelines around the ethical use of generative AI requires considerate management. Our acknowledgment of AI tools in learning and teaching is an evolving project, adapting in real-time to an ever-changing technological landscape. Staff-student collaborative projects like this provide crucial insights that shape HE research and practices, prompting us to remain agile and flexible in adapting to students’ evolving needs.
Preparing graduates for an AI-integrated workplace
Employers are asking that our graduates are prepared to enter employment ready to engage with AI platforms and to do so in a culture of transparency. By thoughtfully managing AI integration, HE institutions can harness its potential benefits, empowering students to ethically leverage AI in their studies and ensuring the educational experience remains authentic, inclusive and equitable.
Marina de Almeida McLoughlin is a Learning Development and Support Officer at the Centre for Biomedical Sciences Education.
Bisola Lateef is a third-year biomedical sciences student.
Emily Peirce a third-year biomedical sciences student.
Jack Taggart is a Lecturer in International Political Economy. He is also a Fellow of the Global Policy Institute at the University of Durham and the Second Cold War Observatory.
Etain Tansey is Professor of Physiology and Biomedical Sciences Education and Director of the Centre for Biomedical Sciences Education.
Laura Collins is a Senior Lecturer (Education) specialising in biomedical sciences.
Sharon Parkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Embryology and Reproductive Biology. She advocates for student partnership as Student Voice lead for the Centre for Biomedical Sciences Education.
Aisling Keane is a Reader and Associate Director for the Centre for Biomedical Sciences Education.
Teaching and Learning Conference 2025
Future-focused education: Ensuring successful student outcomes for all
1-3 July, University of Sheffield
Our flagship three-day conference, attracting HE practitioners involved in teaching and learning from the UK and overseas, provides a forum for delegates to share latest research, project outcomes and initiatives that improve teaching and learning practice. Find out more.
