# QAA publishes draft principles on university assessment and AI

> The draft says courses should include assessed points where AI use can be controlled or checked. It warns against relying on bans or detection software but has not yet been agreed.

The Yoink Report (CodeYoink) | UK | Universities | News of 19 October 2026 | Published 6 November 2026

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) published draft principles on 19 October 2026 for protecting academic standards as students use AI.

[QAA said](https://www.qaa.ac.uk/news-events/news/draft-principles-for-assuring-academic-standards-in-the-age-of-ai) the principles give colleges and universities a shared reference point for one question: whether an assessment shows what a student has learned. It wrote them with an advisory group of researchers, university leaders, practitioners and student representatives. They are meant to apply from further education to doctoral level.

[The draft text](https://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/sector-resources/generative-artificial-intelligence/draft-sector-principles) says summative assessment, the work that counts towards a grade, should include some points where a student's own attainment is checked under conditions in which AI use can be controlled or verified. Not every assessment needs this, it says. A course can plan these points across a whole programme. Examples include questioning, practical work, observed work, placements, simulations and presentations.

The draft says total bans on AI are hard to enforce. It says current detection tools are widely reported to have significant rates of false positives and false negatives, so providers should not rely on detection software alone as a main safeguard. It also calls it "insufficient, and unfair" to set AI rules that a provider has no practical means of checking.

For students and lecturers, nothing changes yet. QAA says the text has not been agreed or endorsed by its advisory group, by QAA or by any other body. Students and staff can send comments through a form on the draft page. The draft says limits on AI should not extend to assistive technology or reasonable adjustments.

QAA says a final version will follow later this year with shared definitions of assessment terms and recommendations. Its pages give no closing date for feedback. They also do not say whether the Office for Students, the regulator in England, will refer to the principles.

> "These principles aren’t about banning AI or relying on detection."
>
> Phil Maull, Nations Enhancement Manager and project lead at QAA (https://www.qaa.ac.uk/news-events/news/draft-principles-for-assuring-academic-standards-in-the-age-of-ai)

## Sources

- QAA: [Draft principles for assuring academic standards in the age of AI](https://www.qaa.ac.uk/news-events/news/draft-principles-for-assuring-academic-standards-in-the-age-of-ai)
- QAA: [Draft sector principles for assuring academic standards](https://www.qaa.ac.uk/en/sector-resources/generative-artificial-intelligence/draft-sector-principles)

Picture: Tejvan Pettinger, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oxford_University_Exam_Hall.jpg

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