Generative AI for Students in the Southern Cross Model

This resource provides students with information on the use of Generative AI (GenAI) within the Southern Cross Model.

Log on to Copilot using your SCU account
Students learning at Gold Coast campus using laptops

At Southern Cross University, we are committed to harnessing the transformative potential of Generative AI (GenAI) for our students, staff and academics.

As you learn in the Southern Cross Model, we want you to pilot, use, understand and critique GenAI, in ways that are authentic and integral to your professional careers. We will help you do that.

You will be exposed to GenAI in a variety of ways across your SCU journey, through teaching, assessment, feedback, research, and navigating your unit content.

At SCU, we take a “first principles approach” in recognising that GenAI is a software that is not inherently good or bad and is a tool that can be used constructively to enhance students' and academics' efficiencies in the way they learn and teach.

SCU has adopted a policy that supports and encourages the use of GenAI where it does not pose an unacceptable risk to the assurance of academic standards and integrity.

SCU believes in the benefits GenAI will produce for students and staff and has committed to providing an educative approach to mitigate the risks of using Gen AI tools in inappropriate or unethical ways.

Explore the page

What Is Generative AI?
Types of Content
Common GenAI Tools
Where GenAI is Used
Benefits of GenAI
Ethical Use of GenAI
Using GenAI Tools
Common uses of tools
Activities to try out
Need GenAI help

What Is Generative AI?

GenAI is a type of Artificial Intelligence that can create a wide variety of information in response to prompts, including images, videos, audio, code, text, and more. GenAI uses a Large Language Model (LLM) that learn patterns, grammar, facts, and even reasoning abilities from their training data. GenAI tools learn patterns from existing data and then regenerate it to create new data outputs. The result is realistic, human-like data, making it a valuable tool for many different industries and applications. Some GenAI tools include: ChatGPT, DALL-E, Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity AI. At SCU we prefer that all students use Copilot and Grammarly where possible to ensure the security of student data and to not allow the use of the data to train the LLM.

The term GenAI refers to computational techniques that are capable of generating seemingly new, meaningful content such as text, images, or audio from training data (Feuerriegel et al., 2024). Generative AI builds on decades of progress in machine learning, especially with the advent of deep learning and transformer-based architectures introduced in models like GPT which stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. These models learn statistical patterns in language or data, enabling them to predict and generate the next element in a sequence, whether that's a word, a pixel, or a musical note.

Types of Content GenAI Can Create

Text Generation (Copilot)

Input prompt - Write a short story about a young girl who discovers a hidden door in her grandmother's attic that leads to a magical world.

Once upon a time, in a quaint little village, there lived a young girl named Lily. One rainy afternoon, while exploring her grandmother's attic, she stumbled upon an old, dusty door hidden behind a stack of forgotten books. Curiosity piqued, Lily pushed the door open and found herself stepping into a magical world filled with vibrant colors, talking animals, and enchanted forests. As she ventured deeper, she met a wise old owl who guided her on a quest to find a lost treasure that could save the magical land from an impending darkness. Along the way, Lily made new friends, faced challenges, and discovered the true meaning of bravery and friendship. In the end, she returned home with a heart full of memories and a promise to visit the magical world again.

Question: What do you think of the short story? Try it yourself and see if you receive the same output.

Learn more

Image Generation (Copilot)

Input prompt - Can you create an image of a class of Southern Cross University students sitting in the library on a rainy day on the Gold Coast campus.

students sitting in a library on a rainy day

Southern Cross University students in the library at the Gold Coast Campus (Copilot, 2025).

Question: What do you think of this image? Does it match your experience? What are some issues or errors in the generation?

Learn more
Students Sophie Cameron, Will McCallum, Luke Austin, interacting and using the Coffs Harbour campus library and Learning Centre facilities.

Common GenAI Tools

  • Copilot: Microsoft's platform, that has seamless integration with Microsoft 365, a service that you can access as a student.
  • ChatGPT: The fastest growing consumer product of all time (Nikolic et al., 2025). It was first released in November 2022 and has now built upon multiple models, where the paid version can now search the Internet and use advanced reasoning to solve complex problems.
  • Gemini: The AI tool developed by Google. Like other GenAI platforms, Gemini is able to develop images, integrate into people's lives through connecting to apps and generate text.
  • Grammarly: AI writing assistance
  • Poe: Personalised assistance
  • Jasper: Content creation platform
  • Midjourney & DALL-E: Specialised in AI image generation
  • Synthesia & Runway: Video generation tools
  • Claude & Character.AI: Conversational AI and storytelling
Learn more about these tools

Where GenAI is Used

Education

The education world was thrown into chaos in 2022 when ChatGPT was first released (Quince, 2024). There was a lot of debate in all sectors of education about academic integrity, the future of graduates' capabilities and more. Most sectors banned the technology in the first instance. However, in 2025, most educational settings are now integrating GenAI in teaching and learning.

Creative Works

The rapid development of GenAI caused several issues with creative works, and still are in 2025. With GenAI tools a completely unique image can be generated in seconds. This creates questions around authorship, intellectual property and copyright.

Benefits and Challenges

Positives

  • Automation of repetitive tasks
  • Enhanced creativity
  • Personalisation
  • Efficiency and productivity
  • Innovation

Negatives

  • Bias in outputs
  • Ethical concerns
  • Limited Creativity
  • Resource intensive
  • Erosion of human skills

Question: Some would argue against items in this list, what do you think? Can you understand why some are in both columns?

Ethical Use of GenAI

Data Privacy and Security

While GenAI tools offer powerful ways to brainstorm, write, and research, they also introduce complex risks around data collection, ownership, security, and privacy. When you type something into a GenAI tool, that information doesn't necessarily disappear after you close the tab. GenAI systems often collect user inputs to improve their models.

Bias, Fairness, and Inclusivity

GenAI tools are trained on datasets pulled from the Internet and other places. As a result, they reflect the tone and information of the dataset which can create outputs that are biased or exclusionary. Bias, equity, accessibility and power are ethical implications discussed when using GenAI.

Transparency and Disclosure

Transparency in how GenAI tools are used is essential for maintaining trust, accountability, and integrity. As these tools become more commonplace, being clear about what was generated or assisted by GenAI is important.

How to acknowledge use of GenAI in your work

Professional Standards

As GenAI becomes more integrated into workplaces, industries are setting clear expectations for how these tools should be used. Whether studying to become a teacher, lawyer, nurse, engineer, artist, or business leader, it's important to understand how to ethically use GenAI.

Reminder: Always check the sources of information you find through GenAI to confirm that they are credible, reliable, authoritative, accurate and fit for purpose - i.e. is there bias representing a certain perspective on a matter?

Logging in to MS Copilot

By using your SCU login to MS Copilot, some of these security issues are mitigated as the data is not stored and is not used to train the model/s.

Log on to Copilot

Using GenAI Tools as a Student

We believe that developing skills in the responsible use of GenAI is an important part of your learning in the Southern Cross Model. There is a process for your Unit Assessor to communicate how you may or may not use tools for specific purposes. These are called the GenAI tool use descriptors. If you are not sure if you can or cannot use GenAI tools in your assessment, please reach out to your Unit Assessor. If in doubt, then do not use it until you have clarity. Your Unit Assessors will also communicate how you need to record your use of GenAI.

Tool Use Descriptors

The GenAI Tool Use Descriptors help clarify requirement for each assessment type, ranging from Full Use (where GenAI is embedded throughout the assessment), to Purpose-Specific Use (only allowed in certain tasks, as guided by your Unit Assessor), to No Use (typically for in-person assessments like exams or interviews). Your Unit Assessor will guide you on what's permitted, and it's essential to keep records of your GenAI prompts, outputs, and drafts. For support with correct referencing and attribution, visit the Library and the Learning Zone.

Visit the Library

Image showing 3 GenAI Tool Use Descriptors

Visit the Learning Zone

Common uses of GenAI tools

Critical Thinking and Academic Reading

  • Break down complex texts into smaller summaries
  • Highlight key points or generate discussion questions
  • Clarify difficult terminology
  • Explore different perspectives
  • Test the strength of your reasoning and identify gaps

Drafting, Report Writing, and Academic Presentation (where permitted)

  • Outline essays or reports
  • Expand bullet points into full paragraphs
  • Generate first drafts for refinement
  • Improve clarity, coherence, and academic tone
  • Reformat content into slides or speaking notes

Scheduling, Planning, and Supporting Learning

  • Creating study or revision schedules
  • Breaking down tasks into manageable steps
  • Offering reminders or to-do lists
  • Providing explanations of difficult topics
  • Suggesting revision techniques tailored to you

Ideation and Creative Thinking

  • Brainstorming essay topics or research angles
  • Suggesting new directions for a project
  • Recommending relevant concepts, sources, or examples
  • Visualising ideas with mind maps or structured outlines
  • Adapting ideas for different audiences or formats

Activities to try out

Goal: Summarise a reading, identify key ideas, or prepare for class discussion.

Step 1: Choose Your Own Article - Select a short article or abstract from your current coursework. It must be from a resource that allows educational use (open access journal or report found on the Internet)

Step 2: Generating an Output - Use the two prompts below to summarise your text.

  1. "Summarise this"
  2. "Summarise this article in 3 sentences, focusing on the research question, methods, and"

Goal: Develop a clear and structured plan for an academic essay or report (that is approved for GenAI use).

Step 1: Choose a Topic - Select a topic you are currently studying or plan to write about in an upcoming assignment.

Step 2: Generating an Output - Use the two prompts below to generate an outline.

"Create an outline for an essay about [your topic]."

"Create a structured essay outline for [your topic], including an introduction with a thesis statement, three main arguments with supporting evidence, and a conclusion."

Goal: Improve clarity and academic style in written work.

Step 1: Choose a Paragraph - Write or copy a short paragraph (3–5 sentences) explaining a concept, argument, or finding related to your coursework (with permission or use an open source document).

Step 2: Generating an Output - Use the two prompts below to refine the writing.

"Rewrite this paragraph in academic language."

"Edit this paragraph to improve clarity, coherence, and academic tone. Avoid casual language and make it suitable for a university-level assignment."

Goal: Convert written content into presentation slide scaffolds for visual communication.

Step 1: Choose Content - Use a short report, essay section, or detailed paragraph from your notes or a reading (with permission).

Step 2: Generating an Output - Use the two prompts below to transform the content into a presentation format.

"Turn this into a presentation."

"Convert this text into 5 PowerPoint slides, including a title slide and 4 content slides. Use clear headings and bullet points for each."

Goal: Plan your time and manage upcoming deadlines effectively.

Step 1: List Your Tasks - Make a list of upcoming assignments, tests, and study goals for the next few weeks.

Step 2: Generating an Output - Use the two prompts below to create a schedule.

"Make a study plan."

"Based on these tasks and deadlines, create a weekly study schedule that balances reading, writing, revision, and rest over the next 3 weeks."

Group of students chatting in the hallway

GenAI Help

Need more assistance with GenAI in the Southern Cross Model?

SCU Library SCU Learning Zone