Understanding Academic Collaboration and AI Use Labels
AI Use Labels
Some George Mason instructors use Academic Collaboration and AI Use labels to explain what kinds of assistance are permitted on an assignment. The labels identify how other people may contribute, how generative AI may contribute, and what you must submit or demonstrate to show your process, judgment, or understanding.
Because assignments assess different knowledge and skills, the label may change from one assignment to another, even within the same course. These labels may be used in face-to-face, hybrid online, or fully online courses.
Questions about an assignment?
Your instructor determines how a label applies to a particular assignment. Read the complete assignment directions and ask your instructor before proceeding if a tool or type of assistance is not clearly addressed.
What does the label tell you?
Each assignment label answers three questions:
- Human Collaboration: How may other people contribute?
- AI Participation: How may generative AI contribute?
- Accountability Evidence: What must you submit or demonstrate?
A label might look like this: H2 · A1 · D · V
This means that you may exchange feedback with other people (H2), use AI as an advisor (A1), disclose the assistance you received (D), and verify consequential information in your work (V).
The label provides a summary. Always read the complete assignment directions for specific permissions, limitations, tools, and submission requirements.
Human Collaboration
The H code indicates the maximum role other people may play.
- H0 — Work Independently: Complete the work without assistance from another person, except for supports specifically authorized by your instructor.
- H1 — Discuss Ideas: You may discuss concepts, questions, and possible approaches with others. You may not share work in progress or completed answers, and you must complete your own work.
- H2 — Exchange Feedback: You may share work in progress and receive comments or suggestions. Other people may not create, rewrite, or directly revise your work.
- H3 — Create Together: You may jointly develop the work with the partners or group authorized by your instructor. This does not automatically permit collaboration with people outside that group.
AI Participation
The A code indicates the maximum role generative AI may play.
Generative AI may include standalone or embedded tools that generate or substantially revise text, images, code, analysis, or other content. Examples include ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot, as well as generative features within tools such as Grammarly, Microsoft Editor, Google Docs, and Notion.
What matters is the function you use, not only the name of the application. A tool may include both conventional editing features and generative features.
- A0 — No Generative AI Use: Do not use generative AI to complete any part of the assignment unless your instructor identifies a specific exception.
- A1 — AI as an Advisor: You may use AI for support activities specified by your instructor, such as brainstorming, explanation, practice, or feedback. AI-generated or substantially AI-revised material may not appear in your submission.
- A2 — AI as a Contributor: You may include or adapt AI-generated text, images, code, analysis, or other material, subject to the conditions stated in the assignment.
Permission to use AI does not necessarily mean that AI use is required. Follow the directions for the individual assignment.
Accountability Evidence
The final letters identify evidence you must provide to make your process, judgment, or understanding visible. An assignment may include one or more of these requirements or none.
These letters do not expand the assistance permitted by the H and A levels. For example, a disclosure requirement does not make an otherwise prohibited use acceptable.
D — Disclose Use: Identify how other people or AI tools contributed to your work and how their assistance influenced your submission. Follow your instructor’s directions for the format and level of detail required.
In practice, that could involve identifying a peer or tutor who provided feedback, identifying an AI tool you used, and briefly explaining what you changed, or chose not to change, because of that assistance.
P — Provide Process Evidence: Submit selected evidence showing how your work developed. This might include drafts, feedback, revision history, or influential AI prompts and outputs. Your instructor should identify which materials you are expected to provide.
Possible evidence might include an early and final draft, selected prompts and outputs that influenced your work, or feedback and revision history with a brief explanation of how you used them.
V — Verify Content: Independently check consequential claims, sources, calculations, code, or other outputs using an appropriate disciplinary source or method. Identify any corrections you made. Providing a citation alone may not satisfy a verification requirement.
Depending on the course, this may mean comparing an AI-generated summary with the original source, recalculating a result using an accepted method, testing code against known cases, or checking data against an authoritative source and identifying any errors you corrected.
E — Explain Your Work: Demonstrate your individual understanding of the work and the decisions behind it. Your explanation may be written, recorded, presented orally, or demonstrated in another format specified by your instructor.
This might be demonstrated by comparing a summary with the original source, recalculating a result using an accepted method, testing code against known cases, or checking data against an authoritative source, and identifying any errors you corrected.
What you remain responsible for
Regardless of the label, you remain responsible for:
- following the assignment’s specific permissions and limitations;
- ensuring that submitted information is accurate and appropriately supported;
- citing and attributing sources according to course and disciplinary expectations;
- providing any required accountability evidence;
- protecting private, confidential, or restricted information;
- following Mason’s Academic Standards and other applicable course or program requirements; and
- understanding and explaining the work you submit.
Common questions
Does A2 mean that I am required to use AI?
Does A2 mean that I am required to use AI?
No. A2 means that AI-generated or AI-revised material may be included under the conditions stated in the assignment. Your instructor will tell you if AI use is required.
Why might assignments in the same course have different labels?
Different assignments assess different knowledge and skills. Your instructor may permit peer feedback or AI assistance on one assignment while requiring independent work on another.
What if an assignment does not include a label?
Follow the assignment directions and the course syllabus. The framework applies only when your instructor uses it. If the expectations are unclear, ask your instructor before using outside assistance or generative AI.
Does using Grammarly, Microsoft Editor, or a similar tool count as AI use?
It depends on the feature and how you use it. Conventional spelling or grammar checking is different from a feature that generates, rewrites, expands, or substantially revises your content. Follow the assignment directions and ask your instructor if you are uncertain.
Does H3 mean I can work with anyone?
No. H3 permits joint creation only with the partners or group authorized by your instructor. It does not automatically permit assistance from people outside that group.
No. H3 permits joint creation only with the partners or group authorized by your instructor. It does not automatically permit assistance from people outside that group.
Does disclosure make any use acceptable?
No. Disclosure documents how assistance contributed to your work; it does not change the H or A level. You must stay within the permission boundaries established by the assignment.
What if the syllabus and assignment label appear to conflict?
Do not assume that one automatically overrides the other. Contact your instructor and ask which expectation applies before proceeding.
Is citing an AI tool the same as verifying its output?
No. Citation or acknowledgment identifies the source of assistance. Verification requires you to independently check consequential information using appropriate sources or disciplinary methods.
Learn more
The labels help communicate assignment expectations, but they do not replace your syllabus, complete assignment directions, program requirements, or university policies.
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