An IB AI policy checklist for coordinators
The IB's position on AI is compact. Its academic integrity policy now includes guidance on the use of AI tools, and the core requirement is that any AI-generated work included in an assessment must be credited in the body of the text and appropriately referenced in the bibliography. The IB also says it will continue to rely on human examiners, and that students should be taught to recognise bias in AI output and evaluate it critically.
That is a clear standard for the finished work. It says much less about how a school gets there. Most coordinators we speak with have a policy document; fewer have a policy that a Grade 11 teacher can apply on a Tuesday. This checklist is for the gap between the two. It is not legal advice and it is not an IB document. It is what a coordinator can check before the policy goes out.
1. Does the policy distinguish between AI use and AI misconduct?
The IB requirement is about crediting AI-generated content, not about banning AI. A policy that reads as a ban will be ignored by students and impossible for teachers to apply. State plainly that AI may be used, and that uncredited AI-generated content in assessed work is the misconduct.
2. Is the acknowledgement format specified?
"Must be credited" needs a form. Decide what the in-text credit looks like (a bracketed note, a footnote) and what the bibliography entry contains: tool, version or date, and the prompt or a summary of it. Give students a template. A template we use is in a separate article on this site.
3. Are rules set at the assignment level, not only the school level?
The same AI use is legitimate in one task and undermines another. Require teachers to state, on each assessed task, what AI may and may not do for that task, with one example of each. A school-level policy that does not require this will be applied inconsistently across departments, and students will notice.
4. Is there a way to see, not only to declare?
An acknowledgement is a student's statement. Decide how a teacher checks it. Options, from lightest to most complete: a process statement students write; document version history; a workspace where the AI conversation is recorded alongside the work. Whatever you pick, name it in the policy so teachers know what evidence they are entitled to ask for.
5. Has the policy ruled out detector scores as evidence?
Say it explicitly. AI detectors are unreliable, they misfire disproportionately on students writing in a second language, which in an international school is many of them, and a percentage is not evidence of anything the IB asks you to verify. A policy that is silent on detectors will have teachers using them.
6. Is the process for a suspected case described as a conversation first?
Before any misconduct procedure, the teacher should be able to sit down with the student and the record and ask them to explain a specific moment. Write that step in. It resolves most cases and it is the step that teaches.
7. Do students see the policy where they work?
A policy in the handbook is one students read once. The assignment-level rules from point 3 should appear on the task itself, every time.
8. Is there a plan for the case the policy did not anticipate?
There will be one within the first month. Name who decides (usually the coordinator with the teacher), and commit to adding the decision to the policy as an example. Policies that grow by cases stay usable.
9. Is the policy reviewed against what actually happened?
Set a date, one term out, to look at real cases and adjust. The IB's own guidance has been updated as the tools changed; yours should too.
How Cognity fits
Points 3, 4 and 7 are where most policies quietly fail, because they require something to exist at the assignment level: rules the student sees, and a record the teacher can read. Cognity is built for exactly that. A teacher writes the AI rules for a task, the rules are shown to students and followed by the AI assistant they use, and every prompt, response and revision is recorded so the acknowledgement becomes a summary the teacher can check against the log. For a coordinator, that means the IB's crediting requirement is met by design rather than by trust.
If you want to see what an IB-style task looks like with a process record, Cognity is free for individual teachers.
Sources: International Baccalaureate, "Artificial intelligence (AI) in learning, teaching, and assessment" (ibo.org, updated February 2026); IB Academic Integrity policy, appendix on the use of AI tools.