Yes, if you have authorization first, and that authorization should be written and dated. The Faculty of Graduate Studies (FGS) guidelines from April 2025 say thesis-based students get it from their supervisor and supervisory committee, keep the record themselves, and disclose every use in the thesis. Your graduate program can set its own rules, consistent with FGS, and when it does, those take precedence.
If your AI statement clearly doesn't cover what you describe elsewhere in your thesis, Esmond points it out.
The core rule is short: “Students should obtain written, unambiguous authorization prior to the planned use of GenAI tools in graduate work (coursework, candidacy components, thesis)”. For a thesis, FGS says the people to ask are your supervisors and supervisory committee. It also expects a first conversation about AI when you and your supervisor sign the Checklist of Expectations for Graduate Students and Supervisors, so the topic can come up early, before any tool is in use.
FGS frames these as guidelines, a living document that sits under the Student Academic Misconduct Policy and the Research Integrity Policy. Where they conflict, those policies win. FGS also says a ban on GenAI in graduate studies is impractical and not recommended, which is why the emphasis falls on permission and disclosure.
A hypothetical example of a commentYour methods section says the coding of open survey answers was done by hand, but your appendix lists a GenAI tool for sorting those answers into themes. Which version is right?
A first comment on one part of your own draft, right away and without an account.
Get a free previewFGS requires written authorization before any planned GenAI use in your thesis, and names five applications as examples. Spell-checkers are the only exception it names.
| Use named by FGS | Authorization needed? | Worth naming in your request (our suggestion) |
|---|---|---|
| Academic writing, including editing of text you drafted | Yes, except spell-checkers | Which chapters, and what kind of editing |
| Generating or adjusting images, sound, and video | Yes | Which figures or media, and the tool |
| Literature reviews and meta-analysis | Yes | Searching, screening, or summarizing, and for which part |
| Research design | Yes | What the tool contributed and what you decided |
| Data analysis | Yes | The data involved and the privacy check you did |
FGS is flexible about the form, as long as the date can be verified: “Written authorization may be obtained via any mechanism allowing date verification (including email or instant message), or may be provided in the course outlines.” A dated reply in a chat thread is a record. A remark in a hallway leaves nothing you can show later.
The guidelines put the burden of keeping that record on you, the student. In practice that means saving the email or message somewhere you will still have it at your defense, not only in a university inbox you might lose access to.
This part of the guidelines protects you later. If someone on your examining committee questions your AI use during candidacy components or the thesis examination, FGS says the authorization records from your supervisors and committee justify that use, and the authorization itself should not be challenged.
The protection works only if the record exists and covers what you did. A use you never asked about has no record behind it. FGS also expects you to understand the tools well enough to defend and explain any results or conclusions that came from them, so the record backs you up without answering the questions for you.
FGS asks you to state three things for each tool: which tool, for what purpose, and how much it shaped the content, together with what you did to check its accuracy. The guidelines reproduce a sample transparency statement from the Western Canadian Deans of Graduate Studies, which FGS offers as an example. Check that your own statement covers all three points, including how you checked accuracy.
The consequence of leaving this out is stated plainly: “Failing to fully disclose the use of GenAI tools in submitted work compromises proper assessment of a student’s academic activities, and hence will be considered a violation of the University of Calgary’s Student Academic Misconduct Policy.”
Graduate programs at UCalgary may add their own GenAI guidelines, and FGS says these supersede the faculty guidelines when they exist. A program can restrict tools up to a full ban, or publish three lists: tools you may use without declaring them, tools that need declaring and authorization, and tools that are prohibited.
So the FGS text is the baseline, and your program's rules come first where they exist. Check your program's handbook or graduate program office before you rely on it, and if you find nothing, ask the graduate program director in writing. Check with your department if anything is unclear.
The guidelines discourage supervisors, supervisory committee members, the people examining your work, and graduate teaching assistants from using GenAI detection tools as the primary or sole evidence that a student used AI. FGS cites high false positive rates and privacy concerns. Instead, it asks them to assess AI use against the principles in the guidelines, which is where your authorization record and your disclosure come in. None of this removes your duty to disclose.
This example is made up. A master's student in kinesiology emails her supervisor and committee in September asking to use a GenAI tool to group open survey answers into themes, and gets a dated yes. In March she also runs her discussion chapter through a GenAI tool that suggests edits to her sentences. The September email covers the first use. The second falls under academic writing, which is a separate item on the FGS list, so it needed its own authorization and its own line in the disclosure. A two-line email before March would have closed that gap.
Esmond evaluates every assignment before you submit. It never writes it.
Esmond is an AI tool that doesn't write for you. If your course doesn't allow any AI tools, don't use Esmond for that work. If you're unsure, ask your instructor or advisor.
FGS doesn't mention feedback tools by name, so the safe reading is that comments from an AI tool on your thesis draft count as GenAI use in your thesis work. That falls under the same rule as the uses FGS names: ask your supervisor and committee for written, dated authorization before you upload, and describe the use in your disclosure. If your program has its own list, check where it puts tools like Esmond. FGS also expects you to know what a tool does with the content you give it, so read the Privacy Notice before you ask. The University of Calgary has not reviewed or approved Esmond.
Esmond reads a draft you wrote and flags factual errors, inconsistencies, and blind spots, with each comment tied to a passage in your PDF. It adds no text to the thesis. To show your supervisor what the comments look like before you ask, read how Esmond works and open the sample report.
No. FGS says a ban is impractical and not recommended. It asks for written authorization before use and full disclosure in the thesis. Your graduate program can still restrict or ban tools for your field.
FGS accepts any record that allows the date to be verified, including email or instant message. Make sure it names the tool and the task, and that your supervisory committee is aware too, since FGS names both.
No. Spell-checkers are the one exception FGS names under academic writing. Your program may publish its own list of tools that need no declaration.
FGS asks for the tools, their purpose, and their influence on the content, but doesn't fix a location. Ask your supervisor and check the thesis guidelines of FGS and your program.
Read on November 6, 2026.
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