GenAI is a fast-moving target

It is increasingly being built into everyday tools we are already familiar with. 

Powerpoint can suggest nice ways of laying out your presentations, and Grammarly, formerly a grammar checking tool, has had an AI-makeover and now claims it can make your writing ‘more convincing’, amongst other things. 

Some students are raising questions about where the line is between inappropriate and appropriate use of these tools.

Read the open letter to students on the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences webpage

Departmental AI Guidance and Policy 

Please note: Postgraduates all need to complete this AI Departmental Policy Agreement Form by 16th October 2026.

Using AI in your assessments

If you use AI in the process of completing Sociology assessments, this must be clearly acknowledged using one of the following declaration forms: 

Undergraduate students: AI Declaration Form for Undergraduate Students

Postgraduate students: Departmental AI Declaration Form

Please see our departmental policy and guidance documents before completing. Permissible use of AI will not be penalised. The departmental declaration form must be completed and submitted with the relevant work, regardless of whether you have used GenAI or not. The declaration form must only be submitted for assessed coursework. It is good practice to acknowledge any use of AI in any of your work, but for non-assessed work, such as supervision essays, this can be done informally (e.g. you could include a single-line declaration before or after the text of a supervision essay).

AI and students: Where is the line?

• Let’s keep it simple: spell-checkers are fine. Tools which highlight poor grammar (like the old-style Word grammar checkers) are fine. Anything which actually writes or edits your writing for you is not. 
  
  Under no circumstances should the text generated by such AI-assisted tools be presented as your own work.
• Doing this in assessed work constitutes academic misconduct. While we are thinking actively about how we might in future engage with AI in diverse forms of teaching and assessment, zero-AI assessments (such as invigilated exams) will likely remain a core part of our assessment landscape going forward.
• Doing so in non-assessed work, such as supervision essays, is a waste of your own chance to learn. Don’t let genAI rob you of your chance to learn

AI Forum

• If you want to find out more about and to discuss the impact of AI in academia, the workplace and the world, then consider attending the AI Forum convened by Dr Luke Hawksbee and Dr Isabelle Higgins. 

You can find a full list of topics that the forum have and will discussed on the forum's own page:
AI Forum | Department of Sociology