Technology and equipment

IT equipment

As a student taking courses in the School of Mathematics, we assume that you will have:

1. Computer
2. Digital writing device
3. Smartphone
4. Good internet connection

Further details of equipment are available here.

School of Mathematics students

Students on programmes run by the School of Mathematics can request devices from us. Please see full information about required devices and how to borrow one at the following link:

Student guidance on recommended IT equipment

Generative AI in your studies

You might find Generative AI (GenAI) tools useful in the general course of studying.

It is important to understand to what extent, if at all, you may use them directly in the production of assessed work to be submitted for credit. This will vary between courses and sometimes between assignments within courses.  The Course Organizer will make it clear when and how GenAI may be used in their assignments. 

A global underlying principle is that you remain responsible for the work that you hand in, however it has been created.  You should, if asked, be able to explain your work, elaborating on the processes used to reach the final outcome, and explaining and justifying the use of any tools (including GenAI).  The work you submit should be an authentic demonstration of your own understanding, whatever tools you have used to create it.   We design coursework with the intention that it helps you learn, and we believe you will get the most benefit from completing coursework when you approach it as intended by the Course Organizer.

When we do not believe it is appropriate for you to use GenAI to complete coursework, we will explain the justification for that decision.  This might be that we are testing that you have fundamental skills that we consider it important for you to acquire independently.  If this is the case, we will explain why we consider these skills important. 

We aim to equip you to succeed in the world after you graduate.  GenAI will be a routine tool in many workplaces and educating you in its ethical and responsible use is therefore important.  We are also admitting you to the community of mathematical scientists, and there are certain fundamental skills that we expect you to learn, irrespective of the perceived ability of technological tools to complete tasks that demonstrate those skills.

Many courses are structured to give you practise in developing skills essential to understanding the material.  Using GenAI inappropriately to complete such assessments will therefore deprive you of this practice and leave you ill-equipped to complete future assessments in that course and follow-up courses.

The use of GenAI in assessments for purposes for which it has been deemed inappropriate will be treated as academic misconduct and will be subject to the usual possible associated sanctions. You should be aware that GenAI tools can:

• plagiarise without acknowledgement other sources, and submission of such an output would therefore constitute plagiarism;
• produce content based on information generated by humans which may contain societal biases and stereotypes, which may then in turn be replicated in the GenAI tool’s response; and
• produce incorrect, irrelevant, or out-of-date information as a result of being trained on a wide range of internet-based sources of differing qualities, including those that are poorly referenced.

The fundamental underlying principle is that you remain responsible for the work you submit, however it has been created.

School of Mathematics students have access to GenAI tools via ELM: https://elm.edina.ac.uk/(requires EASE authentication). 

All University of Edinburgh students can access Microsoft Copilot (uses ChatGPT 4) https://copilot.microsoft.com/ through your University Microsoft account.