The state of AI adoption at the University of Newcastle

Newcastle's Policy on the use of Generative AI in Teaching, Learning and Assessment applies to all students and staff engaging in those activities.^[1] The policy is permissive in principle. GenAI use does not automatically constitute misconduct, and staff are encouraged to incorporate it where appropriate. Within that, the policy hard-codes a few non-negotiable rules: course coordinators may explicitly prohibit GenAI on specific assessments, staff may not use GenAI to mark student work without human review and approval, and the university does not require students to purchase paid subscription tools to participate.

Newcastle's official framing of generative AI is that the institution is 'embracing the benefits that AI can offer students in their educational journeys but conscious of the need to use AI ethically'.^[2] In practice, the institution takes an unusually narrow position on which tools count as institutional. Microsoft Copilot is the only generative AI assistant Newcastle has rolled out with enterprise data protection, free premium access for staff and students, and explicit endorsement.^[3]

The Copilot rollout is enterprise-grade. Prompts and responses are not used to train the underlying language model, prompts are retained for 90 days under enterprise data protection, and the library specifically recommends Copilot over consumer GenAI tools for copyright compliance, on the grounds that consumer-grade services cannot match the data-handling guarantees of an institutional licence.^[4]

Beyond Copilot, the only other AI service the university officially provides to students is Studiosity Writing Feedback+, integrated into Canvas. ChatGPT is referenced in institutional guidance but is not licensed at the institution level: students using it do so as individuals, under their own accounts, with no enterprise data agreement in place. Grammarly is conditionally permitted for grammar and spelling checks, with generative features requiring explicit course coordinator approval.^[3]

Bloom is deployed at Newcastle as a formal research project in first-year mathematics. The project is led by Professor Florian Breuer, a number theorist and Director of the Priority Research Centre for Computer-Assisted Research Mathematics and its Applications (CARMA), alongside researchers Saiful Islam, Karen Blackmore, and Zara Ersozlu from the University of Newcastle.^[5]

The study ran across both semesters of 2025 in MATH1120 (Mathematics for Science and Engineering 2), covering 472 students. Data was collected through pre- and post-experiment surveys. Breuer presented findings at the Australian Mathematical Society Annual Conference on 11 December 2025, under the talk 'Using the Bloom AI Tutor in a first-year Mathematics Course'.^[7]

Breuer's stated assessment of Bloom is that it 'guides students toward understanding instead of just telling them the answer'. He has described it as 'an excellent service I intend to keep using'.^[6]

Alongside Bloom, two other AI services are officially provided to staff and students at Newcastle. A third (Grammarly) is conditionally permitted but not endorsed.