Using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in Your Studies

Generative AI (genAI) is a part of our world, work, and information sources. We cannot escape it, and it is the new tool for almost everything. College is committed to finding constructive ways to use these tools in training and ministry, and this is Moore College’s current guidance on using genAI tools at College.

Contents:

• Using genAI at College

  • Essential road rules

  • Green lights – all good

  • Amber lights – slow down and exercise caution

  • Red lights – don’t go there

  • If you’re still not sure…

• Is there a better community option?

• Finding great sources

• Writing and style

• Opting out of data retention and training

• Have a suggestion?

• Referencing genAI at Moore

Using genAI at College

Essential road rules – Everyone must:

• Fill out the ‘Declaration of GenAI Use’ on the Assignment Cover Sheet that is required for all written assessments at College. (On-campus students can find this on the LSS at A1 – Course Info and Resources / Assessments and Exams; DBT students can find it on the MOD.)

• Read and follow the statement on Permitted GenAI Use for each assessment. You will find this statement on the syllabus for each unit under ‘Assessment Methods.’

• Follow the spirit and letter of the College’s Academic Integrity Policy.

• Not present any material from any genAI tool in a way that gives the impression it was your original work, thinking, writing, or conclusions.

• Clearly and fully reference any information, ideas, writing, or text generated by such technologies. This includes outlines, ideas, points within an answer, and any other information or parts of your submitted answer.

• Not delete your 'conversations' on your genAI tool, as you may need to show how you used genAI if any questions arise about your assessment. Your conversation history can help you then.

• Not upload any College intellectual property (IP) to a genAI tool. This includes slides, lecture notes, articles, assessment guides, and marking guides. These belong to your lecturers and to College and cannot be shared outside College without College’s express consent.

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Green lights – Use genAI with a clear conscience to:

• Check an assignment or a sermon for clarity: ie, “What are the main points of this essay?” or “In 200 words, what is the main argument of this paper?”

• Tell you the points of contention in an academic debate, and suggest the best academic authors for each ‘camp.’

• Suggest a graded academic reading list for an assessment, beginning with introductory sources and moving to high-quality sources.

• Ask for the most relevant sections of a source for your topic.

• Produce a summary or abstract of an article, essay, or book to give you a general orientation to it before reading it. (This is not always reliable.)

• Generate discussion questions or revision questions for a topic. This is useful for individual and group study. (Note that generating these yourself results in far deeper learning, understanding, and retention.)

• Generate memory hooks for Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic vocabulary.

• Give initial overviews or explanations of a new topic. (Single answers can be partial or wrong, so sometimes it helps to generate a couple answers.)

• Suggest ideas for and against an argument.

• Suggest the strengths and weaknesses of a theologian, a position, or an argument. (Again, a couple responses might be needed.)

• Suggest initial outlines.

• Create a timeline or outline of, say, the Christological debates of the Fourth and Fifth Centuries, or the key literary features of the Pentateuch. (However, the learning value of writing your own outlines and timelines far exceeds the value of merely studying someone else’s outline.)

• Answer quick questions during a lecture. One student said, “It pinballs us back into the lecture,” and saves yet another clarifying question.

• Feedback to you on whether a paragraph or a section of your writing is clear. It can identify issues and suggest the types of changes you could make. It cannot, however, make or suggest changes to the text itself.

This is not an exhaustive list, and College will update these guidelines regularly.

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Amber lights – Exercise caution before using genAI to:

• Trim words from an assessment. If you do, you are responsible for any changes to your argument, clarity, or flow of information. These resources may help you write more concisely to begin with: Concise is beautiful: Words and Those pesky word limits.

• Rewrite a text in ‘academic English.’ Generative AI so far produces poor academic English, and Turnitin often flags such work as possibly AI-generated, in which case you may need to attend a meeting to explain that. However, you may ask it to act as a tutor and train you to write more clearly and academically. (GenAI tools often have a generic ‘academic style,’ built on what has been submitted, and not always on actual good writing.) In that case, genAI may help you produce better overall texts, while Grammarly will provide better guidance at the sentence level. (The resource Academic Writing Style can give you a good start, and you can contact the Academic Support Coordinator if you want to develop your academic writing further.)

• Tell you where a text could be clearer (but not rewrite it for you). This is often better done with a human.

• Summarise, paraphrase, or quote material generated by artificial intelligence, though this is discouraged for many reasons: It is not an academic source, it may be false information, and it may not interact with current scholarship. If you use genAI material, you must acknowledge it with a footnote and in the Declaration of GenAI Use on your Assignment Cover Sheet.

• Ask it where an argument or structure could be improved (but not rewrite it for you or tell you what to change). This is also better done with a human. (In both these cases, you could ask your genAI tool to act as a tutor to you, and teach you how to improve your clarity, argument, or structure, but not give you specific changes. That is acceptable use.)

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Red lights – Don’t use genAI to:

• Generate written or oral text for any section of an assessment you submit (unless you quote it and footnote it, but that is poor academic practice.)

• Ask a genAI tool to add words to an assessment. All assessments you submit at Moore College must be in your own words, except where clearly indicated and referenced as a quote.

• Give specific points to improve the argument or content of a text.

• Write a text for you from notes, an outline, or a rough draft .

• Do any task if the tool will retain intellectual property that is not yours.

• Ask it to improve a text or an argument—structure, language, or ‘provide x number of points to improve this text.’ (But asking where it is unclear or needs improvement is OK, as is asking it for general advice on improving your writing.)

If you’re still not sure…

We can never cover every possible case. If you are unsure whether you can use genAI in a certain way, ask these questions:

• Have I followed the genAI syllabus statement for that assessment?

• Have I followed the spirit and the letter of the Moore College Academic Integrity Policy?

• Have I declared all use of genAI in the declaration on my Assignment Cover Sheet?

• Have I referenced any content that is from a genAI tool?

• Is it clear in my submitted assessment which work is mine and which was generated by a genAI tool?

• Is my final submission my work, my thinking, and my learning? Did I create it?

If you can answer yes to all of these, it is probably acceptable use. If you are still not sure, check with your lecturer or with the Academic Support Coordinator.

Finding great resources

New tools are hitting the market that generate academic bibliographies and even summaries of academic articles at the push of a button. I don’t yet know of any that are good and cover biblical, pastoral, and theological fields.

GenAI can produce good reading lists, but it may also generate non-existent, ‘phantom’ sources, so always check any lists it suggests. More importantly, you need to evaluate whether the quality of a reading list that any genAI tool suggests.

These can help you find and evaluate good sources:

Your Academic Sources: Relevant?

Your Academic Sources: Reliable?

Your sources: How to find them.

The librarians and experienced students can also help. The librarians are available to run seminars or to help you on your own, and are excellent at that.

Writing and style

Use Grammarly Pro to improve your formal, academic writing, especially at the sentence level. It gives better results, is simpler to use, and College pays for it. It also retains your voice and style.

A genAI tool can be prompted to tutor you and give feedback on texts at the macro level, such as paragraphing, argument, and flow. I have seen some good instances of this.

If you are interested in improving your writing, check out the resources mentioned earlier:

• Concise is beautiful: Words

• Those pesky word limits

• Academic Writing Style

• So what? Your secret paragraph power

And, of course, you can contact the Academic Support Coordinator.

Opting out of data retention or training:

You may wish to instruct your favoured genAI tool not to retain your data or not to train on it, if they provide that option. These options vary between the tools and change frequently. To find whether this is available and how to implement it, ask your genAI tool. They do not always make it easy, as they want to train their programs with your data, too.

Regardless of such options, no one may upload Moore College intellectual property, including your lecture notes (even lecture notes that you have taken), without the explicit written permission of the College.

Referencing your use of AI-generated assistance or information

See Referencing Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

Updated Jan 16, 2025