City & Guilds Position Statement on AI

The use and misuse of AI in non-examined assessments

The following guidance is designed to help candidates, teachers and assessors to complete NEAs, coursework and other internal assessments successfully. These assessments give candidate the chance to demonstrate skills which cannot be assessed in exams.

AI use refers to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to obtain information and content which might be used in work produced for assessments which lead towards qualifications. While the range of AI tools, and their capabilities, is likely to expand greatly in the near future, misuse of AI tools in relation to qualification assessments at any time constitutes malpractice.

While the potential for candidate artificial intelligence (AI) misuse is new, most of the ways to prevent its misuse and mitigate the associated risks are not; centres will already have established measures in place to ensure that candidates are aware of the importance of submitting their own independent work for assessment and for identifying potential malpractice. This guidance reminds teachers and assessors in centres of best practice in this area, applying it in the context of AI use.

Candidates must submit work for assessments which is their own. This means both ensuring that the final product is in their own words, and isn’t copied or paraphrased from another source such as an AI tool, and that the content reflects their own independent work. Candidates are expected to demonstrate their own knowledge, skills and understanding as required for the qualification in question and set out in the qualification specification. This includes demonstrating their performance in relation to the assessment objectives for the subject relevant to the question/s or other tasks students that have been set. They will have to sign a declaration stating that work they submit is their own.

• As has always been the case, teachers and assessors must only accept work for qualification assessments which is the students’ own;
• Candidates who misuse AI such that the work they submit for assessment is not their own will have committed malpractice, and may attract severe sanctions;
• Candidates and centre staff must be aware of the risks of using AI and must be clear on what constitutes malpractice;
• Students must make sure that work submitted for assessment is demonstrably their own. If any sections of their work are reproduced directly from AI generated responses, those elements must be identified by the candidate and they must understand that this will not allow them to demonstrate that they have independently met the marking criteria and therefore will not be rewarded; and
• Where teachers or assessors have doubts about the authenticity of student work submitted for assessment (for example, they suspect that parts of it have been generated by AI but this has not been acknowledged), they must investigate and take appropriate action before the work is submitted in line with centres’ own assessment or malpractice policies and City & Guilds’ managing cases of suspected malpractice in examinations and assessments.

City & Guilds is a member of the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). The wording of this statement has been taken from the JCQ guidance, which City & Guilds took part in drafting and have adopted.