Being Transparent with AI Use: How to Cite, Disclose, and Document

When using GenAI tools, the best practice is to be as transparent as possible. This concise guide gives a brief overview of how to do this.

By Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning

When it comes to citing and disclosing use of AI, each citation style will have its own set of rules. It is also worth noting that each individual publisher may have their own specific rules as well. When it comes to citing your AI use, be sure to check with both the citation manual and the publisher to be sure you are meeting all requirements. Generally speaking, the best practice for citing, disclosing, and documenting your AI use is to be as clear and transparent as possible.

When citing your GenAI use, include the following: 

  1. The name of the company - Example: Microsoft
  2. The name of the software - Example: Copilot
  3. Software Version - Example: February 7, 2025
  4. Date output was generated - Example: February 10, 2025

For a more detailed explanation of citing the use of GenAI, the USask Library has a great, easy to use resource for quick reference.

When documenting your GenAI use, create a sharable link to the GenAI session if possible If not possible, it is recommended to copy and paste the session into your appendix to give the reader the full context for your content.

To help disclose your GenAI use, the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning recommends that you make a AI Disclosure Statement. You can use the GMCTL AI Disclosure Statement as an example. The statement should have two parts:

1). A large statement that is stored in an easy to find spot such as your syllabus or course content on Canvas.

  a)  Include what tool(s) you will be using, specific use cases, and a mandate for using GenAI.
2). A shorter statement that links back to the large statement so that you can easily copy and paste the short statement on all work that has been made with the assistance of GenAI.

With this guide for GenAI transparency in mind, instructors who have read the first three articles of this GenAI series are now ready to start designing assessments that use GenAI in their classroom. You can read more about that in the fourth article of the series, Designing Assessments that Leverage GenAI.

 

Article Series - "AI exists, now what?"

This article is part of a series that aims to assist educators understand the world of GenAI and will offer suggestions on how to bring it into learning environments, answering the question: AI exists, now what?

  1. AI is Here and You Can ACE It
  2. AI and Academic Integrity: How are students using AI and how do we clarify expectations?
  3. Being Transparent With AI Use: How To Cite, Disclose, and Document
  4. Designing Assessments that Leverage AI
  5. AI and Authentic Assessments: Preparing Students for an AI-Enabled World

Title image credit: Originally posted to Flickr as "Citation needed", this file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license  / Author futureatlas.com

This article was created with the assistance of AI tools, as described in the GMCTL AI Disclosure Statement.

This resource is shared by the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching and Learning (GMCTL), University of Saskatchewan, under a CC BY-NC-SA license. The image was shared by the Province of British Columbia via Flickr with a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license.