Research Help

It is at the discretion of each individual instructor at Erikson, to determine if AI tools are allowed for classwork and to what extent. Please check in with each of your faculty members to determine what the guidelines around AI tools are. Typically, instructors will have an "AI Disclosure" or "AI Statement" in the course syllabi. If there are no guidelines around use of AI present in your syllabi, do not hesitate to reach out to your instructor for clarification.

email libraryhelp@erikson.edu if you have questions about AI tools and how to ethically use them during grad school.

Remember, communication is Key!

Citation and Attribution with AI Tools

Please Note: You should always check with your instructor before using AI for coursework. 

Source URL: https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt

As with all things related to AI, the norms and conventions for citing AI-generated content are likely to evolve over the next few years. For now, the American Psychological Association (APA) has released preliminary guidelines. Individual publishers may have their own guidance on citing AI-generated content. 

Here are some fundamental ideas that hold true for citing AI generated content, no matter which citation style you're using:

• Do cite or acknowledge the outputs of generative AI tools when you use them in your work.
  • This includes direct quotations and paraphrasing, as well as using the tool for tasks like editing, translating, idea generation, and data processing. 
• Do not use sources that are cited by AI tools without reading those sources yourself. There are two different reasons for this:
  • Generative AI tools can create fake citations.
  • These tools may cite a real piece of writing, but the cited content may be inaccurate. 
• Be flexible in your approach to citing AI-generated content 
  • Emerging guidelines will always lag behind the current state of technology, and the way that technology is applied. If you are unsure of how to cite something, include a note in your text that describes how you used a certain tool. 
• When in doubt, remember that we cite sources for two primary purposes:
  • first, to give credit to the author or creator;
  • and second, to help others locate the sources you used in your research. Use these two concepts to help make decisions about using and citing AI-generated content. 

Released April 7, 2023

When you cite AI-generated content using APA style, you should treat that content as the output of an algorithm, with the author of the content being the company or organization that created the model. For example, when citing ChatGPT, the author would be "OpenAI", the company that created ChatGPT. 

Here are some guidelines for referencing AI-generated content in APA style:

• When you reference this content directly in your text, you should include an in-text citation, and an associated entry in your reference list. 
• If you have used AI tools for some part of your research, you should describe that use in your introduction or methods section, and include the prompts that you used (if applicable). 
• When referencing shorter passages of text, you can include that text directly in your paper. You might also include an appendix or link to an online supplement that includes the full text of long responses from a generative AI tool. 

Format:

Author. (Date). Name of tool (Version of tool) [Large language model]. URL

Example:

OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

In-Text Citation Example:

(OpenAI, 2025)

Let's Talk About AI Detection Tools:

AI Detectors...Are AI! AI detectors are usually based off similar LLM models of the tools they are attempting to detect​. Imagine that the AI detector is asking, “Is this the sort of thing that I would have written?”​

AI Detectors look for two things in text:​

• Perplexity – how unpredictable is the text?
  • AI flagged: If perplexity is low, then the text will be more predictable and easy to read, but it also might sound more monotonous. Typically low perplexity text will be flagged as AI written text.
  • Human flagged: If perplexity is high, then the writing might sound more creative but it will usually have more grammar mistakes and issues with content flow. This type of text will be not be flagged as AI written, therefore the detector will determine a human wrote it. ​
• Burstiness – how much variation is there in sentence structure and length? ​
  • AI Flagged: If burstiness is low, then it will be flagged as AI written text, for similar reasons to perplexity. 
  • Human flagged: If burstiness is high, meaning the text is more unpredictable, the AI detector will not flag it as AI text; it will be considered human written content. 

List of Most Common AI Detectors in Higher Ed: ​

• Turnitin AI detection tool​
• Compilatio​
• GPTZero​
• PlagiarismCheck​
• DetectGPT​
• Quillbot AI Detector​
• Grammarly Authorship​

Challenges with Using AI Detection Tools 

Weber-Wulff, D., Anohina-Naumeca, A., Bjelobaba, S. et al. Testing of detection tools for AI-generated text. Int J Educ Integr 19, 26 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-023-00146-z

Taking a look at the research above by Weber-Wulff, et al. (2023), 14 tools (including the Turnitin AI Detector) were studied for accuracy and multiple error types (including false positives)​. No AI detector, including Turnitin, scored 80 percent or above. These tools have also affected ESL learners and international students at an alarming and disproportionate rate. As great as these tools sound on the surface, they unfortunately are not where they need to be to prove with 100 percent certainty that a piece of text was written by AI or not. The advancement of Generative AI as a whole is moving too quickly for detectors to keep up. Below are some statements from Universities that have decided to disable AI detectors at their institutions due to their faulty nature:

• Vanderbilt University​

• Michigan State University​

• University of Texas at Austin

SO, how do we combat the overreliance of AI usage and issues of AI and academic integrity?!

There is not a perfect answer or solution to this issue. There are many ways to think about staying ahead of the curve of AI in the classroom, such as:

• Ensuring you have a thorough AI statement in all course syllabi on how AI is or is not permitted for course work
• Changing assignments from the "traditional paper" to more active options such as:
  • classroom discussions
  • narrated presentations
  • infographics
  • podcasts
  • thesis defenses 
  • integrating AI into the assignment and having students cite and explain how AI was used 
  • Turning on editing history in Word or Google docs to track the version history of student assignments
  • etc.

If you decide to use the Turnitin AI detection tool, make sure that it is just ONE of MANY tools that you use to determine if AI was used in student work. Need more help? Reach out to the librarians via libraryhelp@erikson.edu or book a research consultation with us!

Best Practices to secure and preserve your data privacy when using Generative AI and LLMs: 

• Clear Consent:
  • Before utilizing an AI tool, become familiar with consent mechanisms in place. The "settings" or "account" section of an AI tool should provide the app's terms of use and privacy policy. Typically these tools also have options for enabling/disabling your data being used to improve the model, options to connect/disconnect external applications, and options to delete any stored history. Its important to know how your data will be used and for what purpose.
• Limit Data Retention:
  • Set clear policies on how long data will be retained. Once its utility has been exhausted, securely delete or anonymize it.
• Data Anonymization:
  • To protect your privacy and that of others, do not input any identifying information into any AI tool, or information that is not publicly available on the internet.
  • STAFF/FACULTY - On Data Privacy and the Erikson HR Policy Manual: Although Erikson does not have specific guidelines around AI use for faculty and staff, please consult section III.7 (Confidentiality) of the Erikson HR Policy Manual and the FERPA section of the U.S. Department of Education website for more details on protecting different types of information as an Erikson employee.