Current Students

The Department of Anthropology adheres to the ethical standards of the University at Buffalo (UB) and the American Anthropological Association code of ethics. An academic community is built on trust, and part of that trust includes upholding standards of academic integrity. UB’s Graduate School policy on Academic Integrity states, 

Academic integrity is a fundamental university value. Through the honest completion of academic work, students sustain the integrity of the university while facilitating the university's imperative for the transmission of knowledge and culture based upon the generation of new and innovative ideas.

Students are held to a high level of accountability and are expected to uphold our standards of honesty in order to sustain a fair learning environment. 

Generative artificial intelligence (AI), when used thoughtfully, responsibly, and transparently, may help students organize their ideas, review the literature, refine methodological approaches, and improve clarity of communication. Although AI tools can be valuable, there are many ethical concerns involving how it can also hinder the development of intellectual skills and undermine academic integrity. The following document summarizes the department’s policy for acceptable and unacceptable use of generative AI for graduate program milestones (qualifying exams, Master’s theses and projects, and PhD dissertations). This policy does not apply to generative AI use in graduate coursework, which is determined by the graduate school and the individual instructor. 

This policy pertains to restrictions on the use of generative AI. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content—such as text, images, videos, music, artwork and synthetic data—based on user inputs. By analyzing large datasets, these AI systems learn patterns and structures, enabling them to generate content similar in style and characteristics to the original material used in training. This process uses machine learning models to produce results that reflect the characteristics of human-created content. Examples of generative AI include popular tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok, and Claude. Tools that are not generative, such as spellcheckers, auto-annotation tools (e.g., EndNote, Zotero), and built-in grammar corrections (such as in MS Word) are not restricted by this policy. 

There are many concerns regarding the use of generative AI that users need to consider. These necessitate great care when using generative AI in academic work:

• Does the AI platform use content that violates the intellectual property of other individuals, especially if these are not referenced correctly?
• Who owns the output from generative AI? Content fed into an AI tool may become the property of the AI company, which may not comply with university and funding agency policies, journal publishing agreements, and the student’s own right to own their data.
• Does feeding research data into AI platforms risk identifying human subjects, release confidential information, and compromise IRB requirements?
• Does the AI platform reproduce and perpetuate cultural biases and scientifically proven non-facts from its original training data?
• Can the student claim independent scholarly credit in theses, dissertations, journal publications, and other works for work that was co-produced with AI agents?

Below are descriptions of AI uses relating to the research process, along with general suggestions for acceptable and unacceptable use. However, it is up to the student, their advisor, and their committee to ultimately agree on the thresholds of acceptable use within these boundaries.

AI may be used to support early-stage brainstorming, exploring alternative perspectives and counterarguments, clarifying complex concepts, and investigating applicable methodologies. In these cases, AI should be used to prompt reflection, comparison, and critical thinking. It should not be used to wholly generate research questions, hypothesis, conclusions, or replace the student’s own critical thinking and reasoning.

AI tools may not be used as a replacement for rigorous literature reviews, but they may assist with preliminary literature-related tasks. These may include identifying broad themes across sources, comparing perspectives, or helping students orient themselves to a body of scholarship. Students remain responsible for reading relevant sources directly, evaluating their relevance, and ensuring that all interpretations, syntheses, and citations provided by AI tools are accurate. While students may prompt AI tools to reflect on academic literature, they may not upload copyright-protected materials into AI tools without explicit permission of the copyright holder.

AI may be used to help students develop and manage project milestones, outlines, tasks, and timelines. These uses are appropriate when they help students plan and refine their work with the goal of greater efficiency. Students may use AI to assist with technical coding (e.g., MATLAB, Python, R) and debugging. They may also use AI to assist with developing qualitative coding schemes, clarifying interview questions, and developing survey instruments. However, use of AI in these cases must be approached with caution. Students are solely responsible for verifying the accuracy of computational workflows, as well as the methodological rigor of coding schemes, interview questions, and survey instruments.

Using AI tools for qualitative and quantitative data analysis must be approached with extreme caution and is generally discouraged. AI should not be treated as an autonomous analytic authority. Presenting analyses as a product of one’s research without full methodological understanding of how it was produced conflicts with the expectation of rigorous scholarship. Analytic decisions, interpretations, and conclusions must remain the student’s own work and scholarly judgment. However, in certain situations (for instance when predictive geospatial analysis is a research tool), AI use may be acceptable. In such situations, students should make clear to members of their committees how they are using the relevant technology and obtain their unanimous permission to do so.

AI may potentially be used in limited ways to improve grammar or clarity in text the student has already shaped into near final draft form. Caution is advised, however, as AI can shape the tone of the writing (often reducing originality), introduce inaccuracies, and potentially cause problems for proving the product’s authenticity. For example, some academic journals which have banned the use of AI may flag AI-modified content. To forestall any concerns, a separate draft should be retained prior to any use of AI writing support. Use of AI tools is not permitted for text creation beyond grammar and clarity. It should not be used to generate paragraphs or core sections of a qualifying exam, thesis, dissertation, capstone project, to produce substantial original text on the student’s behalf, or to paraphrase large sections in ways that obscure authorship. AI tools must not be used to fabricate citations, sources, or datasets. Figures, images, and other media generated using AI tools must be credited as being AI generated.

It is critically important that students understand the risks of feeding research data into AI tools. Unless permission is explicitly granted by the advisor, students must not upload unpublished sensitive or proprietary datasets. These may include field data, lab results, model outputs, interview transcripts, survey outputs, as well as any other forms of data that may be deemed protected by IRB. Collaborator-shared materials must also not be uploaded without permission of the collaborator. The student should work with their advisor to understand what data may be covered by confidentiality and privacy protection. Finally, students should avoid uploading published papers and other content that may be covered by copyright laws.

Graduate students are required to discuss their use of generative AI with their advisors and committee members. While this document outlines a general policy, the student-advisor agreement carries much of the responsibility of determining whether the use of AI is within the approved scope. It is best to cover the expectations and restrictions on generative AI use with the advisor in the first semester, again prior to commencing research activities and degree milestones, and in sequential committee meetings as milestones progress. In addition, students should consult with their advisor and committee to ensure their work complies with professional guidelines on AI tools.

Students remain fully responsible for the originality, accuracy, and integrity of all submitted work, including carefully checking any AI-assisted material, protecting sensitive or confidential information, and disclosing substantial AI use in accordance with university, departmental, and advisor expectations. Proper disclosure of AI use is essential. This means acknowledging how AI tools were used. Given how rapidly generative AI is changing research, it is also recommended that students acknowledge when AI tools were not used. Explicitly stating that AI was or was not used will help maintain trust with committees, advisors, and the intended audience of the work, and ensures the work is evaluated fairly.  At the conclusion of a project (i.e., at the time of the final defense or approval process), disclosure of specific use of generative AI must be made to the committee and included within the draft of final project document. This will allow early feedback on whether the disclosed use of AI is acceptable before submitting any final documents to the department and college.  

• "No generative AI was used in the creation of this work. All research, writing, and revisions are my own work."
•  "No generative AI was used in preparing this project. All content was generated independently by the author. Assistive AI was used to correct spelling and minor grammatical errors."

• General structure: “I attest that any use of generative AI in the preparation of this document has been fully disclosed. All substantive ideas, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions are my own. I acknowledge the use of [AI system(s)] to [specific use of generative AI]. I entered the following prompts [list of prompts]. The output from these prompts was used to [explain use]. A record is included in X.”
• Example: “I attest that any use of generative AI in the preparation of this document has been fully disclosed. All substantive ideas, analyses, interpretations, and conclusions are my own. I acknowledge the use of Claude (www.claude.ai) to refine the introduction chapter. I submitted a draft of my introduction and entered the following prompts on 17 March 2025: ‘Improve the academic tone and accuracy of language in this document.’ The original output was then adapted and modified on my own several times to produce the final version. See Appendix A for the full transcript.”

Using generative AI without proper disclosure is a violation of UB’s Academic Integrity policies. In the event of a suspected violation of AI Policy, the advisor and committee will notify the student to seek resolution. Violations may also be referred to the Department of Anthropology Graduate Committee for resolution, or to the UB Graduate School’s Office of Academic Integrity. If a student is sanctioned by their committee or the department for the violation, the UB Academic Integrity office must also be notified in accordance with the UB Graduate School policies.