External assessments place obligations on both teachers and students to be very clear about the use of resources, including AI, in the creative process.
External assessment is the process through which students present evidence of their achievement against a range of specific criteria. Their teacher becomes the examiner and their work becomes evidence that they present. This changes the dynamic of the student-teacher relationship. It requires absolute clarity about the process followed by the student. The issue is significant for both students and teachers, as are the penalties for failing to observe the rules relating to plagiarism and the declaration of sources.
This page explores the regulations governing external assessment and considers opportunities for students to use and declare the use of AI in their research.
Reflection points:
- Should students simply be discouraged from using IA as the benefits are limited and offset by significant risk?
- Should there be a written art and design department AI policy (even if there is a generic school AI policy). If so what should be in it?
- Do teachers’ know and understand their professional responsibilities with regard to AI use?
- How can students entering examinations legitimately use AI for research?
Joint Council for Qualifications
At the time of writing (December 2024) The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) took the view that the issue of plagiarism in external assessment had been clearly addressed in examination rubrics. The penalties for failing to disclose sources were also deemed to be clear.
“While the potential for student 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 students 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.”
JCQ regulations state that AI generated content cannot be understood as the student’s own work produced independently, and so it cannot be seen as providing evidence of the achievement of stated assessment objectives.
These JCQ regulations cover all subject areas and chiefly are related to written examination assessment. The specific circumstances of art and design have consequently not been addressed and external awarding bodies have likewise not offered specific advice for the administration of art and design examinations with regard to the use of AI. Awarding Bodies primarily refer AI enquiries to the generic JCQ guidance. They argue that, although the potential for misuse is new, the procedures to prevent misuse and mitigate associated risks are already in place.
It would seem that, at the time of writing (December 2024), students should be advised that it would be inappropriate to offer generative AI images as evidence of their achievement in external assessment because it is not the students’ own independent work.
AI for Coursework
The only useful reference for art and design teachers is to be found in the JCQ Coursework Guidance. This acknowledges that AI can legitimately be used in the research phase of coursework. However, again this guidance is not art and design specific. So a degree of interpretation is required by art and design teachers.
“In some subjects you will have an opportunity to do some independent research into a topic. The research you do may involve looking for information in published sources such as text books, encyclopedias, journals, TV, radio and on the internet.
You can demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of a subject by using information from sources or generated from sources which may include the internet and AI.
Remember though, you must take care how you use this material – you cannot copy it and claim it as your own work”
JCQ 2023-2024. Information for candidates – coursework assessments, Appendix 2
This indicates that AI generated images and information can be used in coursework research. Art and design is the only subject where the work presented for assessment is primarily produced under the conventions of coursework. The essential issue for students is to demonstrate that they retain control of the creative process, and that they use the resources explicitly to support the creative choices they make.
Students must record and present evidence of the source of all their reference materials and how this has been used. In essence this is simply the commonsense reaffirmation of existing practice in the way that students should acknowledge their sources. This is important for students taking examinations. Because this work is presented as evidence for external assessment, which has consequences that other (non-examined) art work does not.
“Where computer-generated content has been used (such as an AI Chat bot), your reference must show the name of the AI bot used and should show the date the content was generated . For example: Chat GPT 3.5 (https:// openai.com / blog / chatgpt/ ), 25/ 0 1/ 20 24. You should retain a copy of the computer-generated content for reference and authentication purposes.”
JCQ 2023-2024. Information for candidates – coursework assessments, Appendix 2
Ofsted
Ofsted April 2024 published a statement about AI and its use. Ofsted’s approach to Artificial Intelligence. (AI). This is short, clear and succinct. It indicates how Ofsted will use AI in its’ own work and the principles that will govern its use. These follow on from the five principles set out by the government’s AI Regulation White Paper.
Ofsted defines what it will expect from schools in relation to their use of AI using these principles. This recent publication by Ofsted explains what it will expect of providers, and consequently will increase the momentum for schools to develop their own AI policies as this will become evidence used by Ofsted. Art and design teachers will, like all other teachers, need to be aware of these AI issues.
Research & Guidance
The increasing ubiquity of digital media will likely require greater diligence and discourse on the part of students and their teachers. They will need to ensure clarity about the source of reference imagery and how this contributes to final outcomes.
Teachers will make their own judgements about the guidance they offer to their students. Obviously this will reflect how they interpret the evidence of their students’ independent achievement. It is inappropriate to offer more than general guidance here. Schools may have different approaches and communication between the student and their teacher/examiner and the moderator will necessarily be specific to that school.
As familiarity with, and access to, AI evolves it will be worth returning to the principles and practices of formative assessment to explore the relationship of AI and the partnership between teachers and students in raising standards as first described by Paul Black and Dylan William in ‘Inside the Black Box.‘
AI as legitimate research
Below are some ideas which might represent a legitimate use of AI in art and design coursework which is offered for external assessment. However, these have not been tested and no doubt other ideas will emerge as teachers become familiar with AI.
Research Images:
Research which involves the collection of images for reference is a normal practice in art and design. The source of such images has to be acknowledged and teachers should be confident that students are open about the source of their images and have documented AI generated images correctly.
It would be good advice to students that they should research a variety of images from a variety of sources. This is not only good practice but it would also serve to confirm and demonstrate that the student retains creative control and makes their own informed choices in the process of developing their work.
Research Details:
Research into specific parts or aspects of students’ ideas, for instance, AI generated images to illustrate the detail of how hand might hold a paint brush in particular circumstances. This is the same as using a google researched, reference image.
It would be good advice to students to recommend that in some circumstances such reference imagery be produced as if in a different medium to that to be used in the final outcome. For instance, if the student intends to make a painting which involves a hand, some reference images might be in black and white, or a line drawing. This mirrors the process of making preliminary drawings, and will again avoid the charge of simply copying a single AI image.
all images in these AI pages are generated by MidJourney or ChatSmith
Contribute Components:
AI might be used to create certain component parts of a student’s final image or work. For instance, in making designs using digital software programmes. This would be typical in graphic design practice and animation where different software and processes are typically used to create different components of the final work. It might also be relevant in collage work, or in an installation involving a digital projection.
In these circumstances, although the AI component may not contribute evidence of independent work, the student’s creative input is evidenced in the way in which the component parts are chosen, combined and used in the final piece.
It would be good advice to students to discuss and keep their teacher fully aware of the processes they are using to generate their final piece, because the processes are often involved and complementary. This would make detailed documentation cumbersome and time consuming, whereas conversations during the process would ensure the teacher is fully aware of how the final piece was created and able to make an informed assessment.
Present Critical Understanding:
AI can be used effectively to present students’ critical understanding and knowledge about art, artists and designers along with their cultural and historical context. For instance, Adobe After Effects offers the ability to generate avatars which can reproduce the spoken voice. Students could use this to provide an animation speaking about an art work and spoken by an avatar in front of the artwork (see demonstration below).
Increasingly students will be familiar with short form techniques of animation, video and other digital technologies like TikTok which enable them to present information in new ways which can involve AI generated images, words and sounds. This seems appropriate in a creative subject like art and design which aims to encourage digital literacy as well as visual literacy. Teachers will need to distinguish between the medium and the message in their assessment.
It would be good advice to students to discuss and keep their teacher fully aware of the processes they are using to produce these innovative means of communicating ideas and information, because the processes are often involved and complementary. This would make detailed documentation a cumbersome and time consuming process, whereas conversations during the process would ensure the teacher (in the role of examiner) is fully aware of how the final piece was created and able to make an informed assessment.
AI in art as the subject of study: Students can research the role and potential of AI in art. This could be the focus of a special study and could involve some use of AI to illustrate the content of the special study.
It would be good advice to students to inform them of the weighting of the special study component in the assessment and the nature of the assessment criteria that are applied. This would ensure that they spend an appropriate amount of time and energy on this aspect of the examination.
Resources
Click here to download the JCQ appendix for students which describes how AI might be used for research.
Click here to download a simple writing-frame for students to support research using AI generative images.
Click here to download an example of a student prompt to support their research in art and design.
Click here to download an open source school policy template by the ‘Computing at School’
further reading