An AI acknowledgement template for IB and international schools
The IB's academic integrity policy now includes guidance on AI tools, and the requirement is clear: AI-generated work included in a piece of assessment must be credited in the body of the text and appropriately referenced in the bibliography. Most international schools have written or are writing an AI policy to match. The part that tends to be missing is the mechanics: what exactly does a student write, and how does a teacher check it?
This is a working template, not legal advice. Adapt it to your school's policy.
The one-paragraph acknowledgement
Ask students to include this at the end of any assessed work:
AI use statement. I used [tool name, e.g. ChatGPT / the class AI assistant] for this work. I used it to [brainstorm ideas / get feedback on my draft / check grammar / explain a concept / other: ]. I did not use it to [write sentences that appear in this work / generate my argument / other: ]. Where text or ideas from the AI appear in this work, I have marked them [in brackets / with a footnote] and listed the tool in my bibliography. [Optional: I have attached my conversation log.]
Four things make this work better than a yes/no checkbox. It names the tool. It names the purpose, which is what the IB and most school policies actually care about. It states the negative, which forces the student to think about the line. And it points to evidence, which is where the template stops being a promise and starts being verifiable.
The bibliography entry
The IB does not mandate one format, so follow the citation style your school uses. A workable general form:
OpenAI. (2026). ChatGPT (Sept 2026 version) [Large language model]. Prompt: "Give me three arguments about…" Response retrieved 12 Sept 2026.
Include the date and the prompt or a summary of it. A bibliography entry for AI with no date and no prompt tells the reader nothing.
A short checklist for the teacher
Does the statement name a tool and a purpose? Does the stated purpose match what your assignment allowed? Is any AI-derived text actually marked in the work? Is there a bibliography entry? Is there any evidence beyond the student's word?
The last question is the hard one, and it is where most policies quietly fail. A statement that says "I used AI for brainstorming only" is unverifiable if the brainstorming happened in a tab you never see.
Making the acknowledgement automatic
The cleanest way to make an AI use statement verifiable is to have the AI use happen somewhere that keeps a record. When students work with an AI assistant inside the same workspace where they write, the record is generated as they work: every prompt, every response, every revision, in order. The acknowledgement then stops being a paragraph the student composes from memory and becomes a summary the teacher can check against the log.
This is how Cognity is built. The teacher sets what the AI may do for a task (coach but not write, for example), students join by link, and each submission arrives with its process record and an authorship breakdown. For an IB coordinator, this means the AI acknowledgement requirement is met by design, and a teacher who is asked "how do you know?" has an answer that is not a probability score.
A note on what not to do
Do not use a detector score as the check. Detectors are unreliable, they misfire on non-native English writers, and a score is not evidence of anything the IB asks you to verify. If your policy says "we will check for AI use," the check should be a record, a conversation, or both.
If you want to see what a process record looks like in an IB-style task, Cognity is free for individual teachers. Set a task, share the link, and read the first record when it comes in.
Sources: International Baccalaureate, "Artificial intelligence (AI) in learning, teaching, and assessment" (updated Feb 2026); IB Academic Integrity policy, appendix on the use of AI tools.