At UCC, submitting AI output or using AI to gain an unfair advantage, without acknowledgement and without authorisation, breaches academic integrity, and your Programme Director and Module Coordinators tell you what AI use and disclosure each assessment allows. That is the position in UCC's policy on Academic Integrity for Continuous Assessments (version 3.0, May 2026), which applies to students registered from 2026-2027. Here is what it says, checked 17 October 2026.
Try the free previewThe policy, approved by Academic Council on 15 May 2026, puts it in one sentence: "Academic integrity is breached if students submit the products of AI or use AI products to gain unfair academic advantage without acknowledgement and without authorisation to fulfil a task."
It defines AI tools broadly. Generative AI is named, but so are agentic AI and wearable devices with built-in AI capabilities. The policy also calls AI a fast-moving area: guidance on ethical use comes through CIRTL, the Skills Centre and the Library, that guidance may change during the year, and students are expected to keep up with it.
This is a policy for continuous assessment, and its list of what that includes names projects and minor dissertations next to essays, practicals and laboratory reports. Elsewhere it states that essays, dissertations, projects, portfolios and other submissions in a taught degree may be checked for academic misconduct.
Research theses are treated differently: allegations of misconduct in a research thesis fall outside this checking. If you are on a research master's or a PhD, look at the rules for your own degree and ask your supervisor.
Under the policy, Programme Directors and Module Coordinators are responsible for making students aware, at the start of each academic session, of the integrity rules for all continuous assessments, including AI use and disclosure. The rule for your project should therefore reach you through your programme and module information, not through a university-wide statement.
Before you submit any piece of work, you are also asked to confirm assessment statements saying that you know your obligations and have not engaged in misconduct. If you are about to confirm one and are unsure whether a tool you used counts as AI use, ask before you submit, not after.
The policy is unusually direct about detection software: "The use of AI detection software for the detection or investigation of alleged academic misconduct is not sanctioned by the University." It explains that such tools are unreliable, produce false positives and false negatives, and shift the burden of proof onto the student.
What it relies on instead is evidence of how the work came about, such as draft histories, version logs and research trails, and your own account of it. Where there are credible grounds for doubt, "the student may be required to orally defend their work to assess its originality, as well as their understanding of the topic(s) being assessed." The policy calls this an oral defence and says it can take the form of an oral examination, a code walk-through, a studio critique or a similar conversation.
Esmond evaluates; it does not write. You upload your own draft and get comments in the margin plus a report that shows where your argument, method or use of sources is weaker, and why. It does not write or rewrite your text: it points to the weak spot and gives a direction for revising it. Where a comment includes an example, it illustrates a principle; the sentence you submit is one you write yourself.
UCC has no connection with Esmond and has not endorsed it. Be straight with yourself: Esmond works with language models, so using it is a form of AI use. Rules on AI differ per university, programme, module and assignment. Check your module or programme handbook before you upload, and if it is unclear, ask your supervisor or module coordinator and declare the use if your institution asks you to.
This page summarises what the institution publishes, with links to the source. It is not legal advice and not a ruling on your assignment: what your programme, module or supervisor sets always comes first.
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The policy states that the University does not sanction AI detection software for detecting or investigating alleged misconduct. Work in a taught degree can still be checked in other ways, and you may be asked to defend it orally.
It is a policy for continuous assessment, and allegations of misconduct in research theses fall outside it. Research students should check the rules for their own degree and ask their supervisor.
No. Esmond is independent. UCC has no connection with Esmond and has not endorsed it.
Official document, checked 17 October 2026. Quotations are word for word; the rest is our summary. Read the full text at the source.