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How to use generative artificial intelligence responsibly

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has immense potential to enrich your learning process. It can help you deepen your research, improve your writing, and stimulate your creativity. However, inappropriate use of these tools can have serious cognitive, academic, and ethical repercussions. Apply best practices now to make sure you are using GenAI responsibly and in line with academic requirements throughout your academic career. 

Understand the advantages and limitations of GenAI

For GenAI to be a valuable tool throughout your academic career, you need to know when to use it and when to avoid it. Learn how to make the most of it while avoiding the pitfalls.  

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GenAI is particularly useful for:  

  • Personalized learning: get quick results adapted to your specific needs.   

  • Explore and simplify complex concepts: Get clarity on concepts that are difficult to grasp; GenAI can present them in different ways.     

  • Making research and documentation easier: get ideas for your work and save time in your research.     

  • Review and prepare for your examens: use GenAI to study efficiently.  

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In what situations can GenAI be helpful?

  • Stimulate your reflection: GenAI lets you explore new lines of thinking.   

  • Broaden your perspectives: GenAI helps you approach a subject from a different angle.   

  • Move past roadblocks: GenAI can rephrase a question or break down a problem to make it easier to understand.   

  • Boost your analytical skills: GenAI can be used as a partner to sharpen your reasoning.     

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When can using GenAI be harmful?

GenAI becomes a limitation when it replaces your active engagement in the learning process. For example: 

  • When you learn or synthesize new ideas or information..
    Delegating the task of synthesizing to GenAI reduces your ability to develop essential analysis and synthesis skills, as summarization requires sustained cognitive effort. Learning requires sustained cognitive effort. Delegating these tasks to GenAI (e.g., requesting a summary) lowers your engagement and undermines the learning process. 

  • When cognitive effort is the purpose of the task.  .  
    Learning means taking on challenges and accepting to work with the knowledge that effort leads to intellectual development and understanding new concepts. If GenAI does everything for you, you will not develop your analysis, critical thinking, and thought processes to their full potential.  

Be careful with your data!

The data you provide to GenAI tools can help them learn. For this reason, it is crucial to protect sensitive information to avoid any risk of leaks or misuse.

Integrity in a few steps

Academic integrity is a fundamental value that guarantees the legitimacy and quality of your studies and achievements. In just a few steps, you can use GenAI tools while meeting the expectations of the School and its faculty.   

Follow the instructions in your course syllabus

At the start of the term, carefully read your course syllabus to determine whether using GenAI is permitted for each evaluation. Since fall 2024, HEC Montréal’s faculty have been giving clear instructions on this topic. If you are ever in doubt, do not hesitate to speak to them about it.

For any other academic activity that is not part of your course evaluations, discuss the matter directly with the teacher. By being proactive, you can obtain instructions adapted to the assignment.  

Keep in mind:

  • Rules for using GenAI may vary from one teacher to the next. 

  • What is allowed for one evaluation is not necessarily allowed for another.  

The three essential principles to follow

Apply these three principles every time you use GenAI tools: 

Responsibility

Produce work that reflects your own ideas and style. Ultimately, you are responsible for what you hand in. GenAI can assist you but it cannot do the work for you. 

Transparency 

In addition to following the rules, clearly state how you used GenAI to produce your deliverables in order to distinguish your personal contributions from those of GenAI. This shows you have a firm understanding of how to use these tools and that you adhere to the related academic standards. 

Protection of personal information and intellectual property

Do not share confidential, personal, or sensitive information via a GenAI tool. It is also crucial to use caution when entering data protected by intellectual property rights into GenAI tools.

Checklist: evaluate your use of GenAI

Before, during, and after an assignment, make sure you can answer “yes” to ALL these questions. If you cannot, take the necessary measures to correct the situation1.  

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Before beginning an assignment

  • I have made sure my teacher allows the use of GenAI for this assignment.  

  • I clearly understand when and how I can use GenAI for this assignment.   

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During the assignment  

  • I am using my own thoughts, words, and style.  

  • I have checked the GenAI results for quality and declared and cited any use thereof.

  • I have critically analyzed the AI output and identified any false, biased, or harmful information.      

  • I have not used confidential, protected, or copyrighted information in GenAI tools.  

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When the assignment is complete  

  • I can explain my findings and demonstrate full understanding without the aid of GenAI.  

  • I can prove what sources I used and how I verified the information.  

1 Elon university (2024). A student guide to navigating college in the artificial intelligence era. Retrieved November 15, 2024 from https://studentguidetoai.org/

Properly cite your use of GenAI

If you use a GenAI tool for your assignments, you must state this explicitly. Being transparent is a testament to your academic integrity and meets the School’s expectations. Learn the best practices to make sure you clearly state the role GenAI played in your process and properly cite AI-generated content.

Recommendations for a clear declaration

  1. Formally declare your use
    Explicitly state that you have used a GenAI tool in a particular section, such as in your methodology, introduction, or footnotes. You must also indicate the date you used the tool.  

  2. Identify your tools 
    Specify the name of the tool, the version used, its URL, and for what purpose you used it (e.g., generating ideas or building a plan). 

  3. Explain how you used the results 
    Explain how you adapted or used the results you obtained from GenAI in your work. 

  4. Specify your prompts
    If you cite AI-generated results, include the prompts you used to obtain these results. 

Ask your teacher for specific instructions!  


Example of a declaration: 

The following is an example of how to declare your use of a GenAI tool in an academic paper: 

I declare that I used [name of AI tool, version, and link] on [date] for [specific purpose, e.g., to generate ideas, organize my thoughts, or improve a text]. The results were [indicate what you did with them, for example: adapted, revised, or incorporated into my work]. I used the following prompts: [provide prompts in quotes].  


Practical cases 

I declare that I used ChatGPT (Version: October 10, 2024; https://chat.openai.com/) on November 8, 2024, to generate ideas and organize my thoughts. The results helped me draft an initial plan for my work, which I then revised and adapted to suit my needs. I used the following prompts: “Propose some ideas for an essay on renewable energy” and “How to properly structure an introduction plan.”   

I declare that I used ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/) on October 10, 2024, to help prepare my document research. The results helped me clarify the topic and identify key words to guide my research. I used the following prompts: “What are the main challenges of the energy transition?” and “Suggest some key words for researching scientific articles on this topic.”      

I declare that I used ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/) on October 10, 2024, to obtain writing support. The results were used to reformulate sentences in the introduction of my assignment, which I then altered to reflect my writing style. I used the following prompts: “Rephrase this sentence to make it more concise: ...” and “Propose an alternative to introduce ting a complex subject.” 

Questions?

Contact the GenAI work group:

iag@hec.ca