On 11 November 2026, England’s higher education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), warned that some assessments can be completed with generative AI without showing what a student has learned. The OfS outlined how it would use its existing oversight and proposed a future approach to assessing quality. OfS announcement
For your next essay, start with the instructions for that specific submission. Look for which uses are allowed, what you must acknowledge, and what work you need to produce yourself.
Three documents, three decisions
- OfS announcement
- Read why assessment design is under scrutiny in England.
- University policy
- Check the general rules on AI use and acknowledgement.
- Assignment brief
- Find the instructions for the work you will actually submit.
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What did the Office for Students warn about?
An assessment should show what the student has learned. The OfS and Advance HE described cases where a tool can produce a convincing answer without the student having to demonstrate the skill under assessment. An unsupervised essay and an essay where the student must critique AI call for different ways of checking what the student can do.
The research drew on interviews and discussions about what students and staff were seeing. Participants also described difficulty understanding their institutions’ AI policies. Those observations help explain why clearer rules and better assessment design matter. OfS and Advance HE research summary
What might change for students?
The proposed approach would ask universities and colleges to show how their assessments measure students’ skills. The OfS identifies closed-book exams, presentations and practical assessments as possible ways to measure learning in some courses. The form of an assessment still depends on the course and the skill being assessed. OfS next steps
Your assignment brief may include instructions like these.
Scroll to see all columns
| The brief says | Before you begin |
|---|---|
| “Use AI to propose two approaches and evaluate them.” | Save the prompts and outputs, then write your own comparison against the marking criteria. |
| “You may use spelling and grammar assistance.” | Ask whether it covers sentence rewriting. Name the tool and describe the assistance if the brief asks for a record. |
| “Complete this assessment without generative AI.” | Plan how you will take notes, practise and revise with the permitted materials. |
Terms can be narrower than they sound. A module may allow a spellchecker to mark a typo and reserve the wording of whole sentences for the student. A tool can offer both actions in the same menu, so check the action you intend to use.
How to check your next assignment
- Find the current brief. Use the version in your module page or submission portal. Identify the assignment title, due date and marking criteria.
- Read the specific AI instructions. Look for rules on planning, translation, editing, sources and acknowledgement. Check whether the same rule applies to drafts and the final submission.
- Ask about one real action. “Can I use AI?” is broad. Naming the step you are considering lets the module team answer it precisely.
- Keep a short record as you work. Your outline, annotated sources and dated drafts can help you explain how you reached the final version. Save permitted tool use in the format your course asks for.
A question you can adapt
For the November history essay, I have written the argument and citations myself. May I use an AI tool to suggest clearer wording for individual sentences? If that is allowed, what should I include in my acknowledgement?
Ask before using the tool. If the answer sets a limit, keep it with the brief so you can follow the same instruction when you revise.
What if I already have a detector flag?
Start with the report and the school’s review process. Ask which report or passage prompted the question, then compare it with your submitted version and notes. A Turnitin AI writing indicator and a Similarity score answer different questions. The Turnitin AI flag guide explains how to tell the reports apart.
For the next piece of work, use the learning outcome as a check. If the assignment measures how you weigh historical evidence, keep the choice and interpretation of that evidence yours. When the assignment asks you to test AI itself, document what you did and explain your judgement in the final work.