Artificial intelligence to support your studies

Generative Artificial Intelligence

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of AI that focuses on creating new content, such as text, images, audio or video. Expertise and understanding of AI are becoming important skills for the future working life, so as a student, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with the possibilities and limitations of AI.

AI works great as a support tool in studies: as an assistant, idea generator, sparring mentor, mentor and productivity booster. However, it does not take away the need for subject-matter expertise. On the contrary, sensible use of AI requires your expertise so you can verify the accuracy of the information produced by AI.

Use of AI in Studies

The use of artificial intelligence in studies is not guided by one general rule for all situations. How and whether AI can be used always depends on the course and the assignment. The teacher of the course will give you clear instructions on how to use AI either throughout the course or in individual assignments. The teacher assesses whether the use of AI in this assignment supports or hinders your learning. The teacher also explains how the use of AI should be reported and how its role should be considered in the assessment. The misuse of AI can be interpreted as fraud.

The guidelines utilise the traffic light model of the Rectors’ Conference of Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (Arene ry), which indicates whether the use of artificial intelligence is allowed, restricted, or prohibited.

See also

The Use of AI in the Thesis

The use of artificial intelligence in the thesis requires responsibility, transparency and compliance with responsible conduct of research. As the author of the thesis, you are responsible for all the material you produce.

Generating text directly for a thesis with AI is prohibited. The misuse of AI is equated with plagiarism.

At different stages of the thesis process, you can use various AI services, for example, to get to know the topic, brainstorm ideas and search for information. You can use AI in the preparation phase, for example, to brainstorm important themes and the structure of the work, as well as to map out research methods. It is important to consider the use of AI and its documentation already in the planning phase. Please note that the appropriateness of the use of AI affects the evaluation of your thesis. At an appropriate point in the thesis, for example, in the Methods section, tell if you use AI and report what, how and why you used it.

In all uses of AI, the practices of scientific writing must be followed. Ideas, information, words or other material of others may not be presented without sufficient reference. Check HAMK’s source reference guide for instructions and examples for different situations.

In the instructions for the thesis, you can find more detailed information on how you can utilise AI. Please read the instructions carefully!

AI tools at HAMK

We recommend the following AI services for students to use:

• Microsoft Copilot: You can use Copilot directly in the Microsoft 365 portal by logging in with your HAMK credentials (username@student.hamk.fi). Copilot also works in the Microsoft Edge browser. By logging in with your HAMK credentials, you get access to a more secure version of Copilot.
• Google Gemini: You can log in with your HAMK credentials with Google login (username@student.hamk.fi). In that case, the account settings have already disabled the use of your data for language model training.

Ethical and responsible use of AI

The use of AI requires awareness and accountability

Follow the instructions given in the course and Arene’s traffic light model. The most important things to consider:

• Transparency: Clearly state your use of AI (e.g. in student work).
• Accountability and source criticism: AI-generated content can be inaccurate or biased. You, as the user, are responsible for the outcome.
• Privacy: Do not enter personal data or confidential material into open AI services.
• Copyright: Do not upload material created by someone else into AI services without permission. Uploading licensed content to AI applications is prohibited (e.g. standards and nearly all scientific articles).
• Fairness and equality: Consider ethics and fairness in the use of generative AI.

Using AI in information retrieval and content creation

Be critical when using AI to search for information. Ask the AI for sources and check the facts from the original sources. Be aware of what kind of information the AI has been trained with and what it may lack. A lot of information on the network is behind a paywall, and generative artificial intelligence cannot access it.