AI research

GenAI tools can be used in the early stages of research to brainstorm ideas and to identify possible suitable research design. They can also be used to support project management.

As a researcher, it is your responsibility to ensure your use of generative AI does not breach any legal or ethical obligations and to exercise the utmost professionalism and academic standards. 

• Take legal and ethical responsibility for your use of GenAI in your research.
• Comply with conduct policies including ACU's Research Code of Conduct and the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research.
• Consider using GenAI to address writer’s block by prompting thinking.
• Treat generated research ideas with caution and cross-check for originality via literature searches.
• Consider using GenAI to generate project plans and timelines.
• Consider using GenAI as a virtual mentor. 
• Be transparent and accountable. Declare which tools you have used and how you have used them.
• Have awareness of the risk of oversharing your research question before you begin your project. Open GenAI tools often harvest prompts and uploaded material for training and refinement of the tool. There is a risk that your research question may be shared with your competitors!
• Check terms of use of GenAI tools including privacy policies.
• Review GenAI output for inaccuracy and bias.
• Use the right tool for the right job.
• Familiarise yourself with scholarly publishers’ policies.

• Don’t breach confidentiality through information in your prompts or through sharing data with public GenAI tools.
• Without permissions, third party copyrighted materials should not be uploaded or used in prompts when using GenAI tools.
• Without ethics approval, confidential or sensitive data or material, human research data, and private or personal information should not be uploaded or used in prompts.
• Sharing data in GenAI tools may constitute a breach of IP, privacy legislation and ethics. 
• Don’t share grant applications with any GenAI tool. It will breach most grant application guidelines. 
• Don’t upload copyrighted or licenced material into GenAI tools.
• Don’t create or manipulate images with any GenAI tool unless this is part of research methodology and fully disclosed. 
• Don’t represent material created by GenAI as your own work.
• Don't use GenAI as a peer review tool. It should not be used to assess peer review material.

Exemplar - Case example 1

Sara is a PhD student preparing for her research project. She consults with her supervisor, then uses a GenAI tool to generate and refine her research ideas. She then employs a different tool to explore research design approaches. Sara keeps a record of how she has used GenAI tools and all her prompts and outputs to ensure transparency when reporting her research.

Sara has used GenAI responsibly because she has used the tool to stimulate her creativity and has been transparent about her use of the tool. She has not shared any confidential information with the tool.

Exemplar - Case example 2

Aarifa has just completed her PhD project work and is in the final stages of preparing her thesis for submission. She uses a GenAI tool within her word processor software to help her in proofreading her thesis for spelling and grammatical errors. Aarifa only uses it for minor copyediting, she does not use it for re-writing any part of her work. She checks the referencing style she is using for her thesis and acknowledges her use of the GenAI tool in the appropriate format.

Aarifa used GenAI responsibly because she has only used GenAI to support minor copyediting and has declared her use.

Cautionary - Case example 3

Caleb is an early career researcher about to embark on his research project and uses GenAI to help him plan his research proposal. Caleb uses a GenAI tool and copy-pastes the full text of his colleague’s published article from the team’s earlier research. He prompts the tool for new research ideas which would build on this work. He copies the output text into a Word document without noting the GenAI as the source. A few weeks later, he finds the notes and, forgetting that they came from GenAI, integrates them verbatim into his project proposal.

Caleb has failed to use GenAI responsibly because he has breached copyright in copying text from a published work. He has failed to exercise critical evaluation of the GenAI output and he has used GenAI output verbatim and without disclosure which is an example of plagiarism.