Similarity Checks and Use of AI
Academic Integrity and AI Usage
Fundamental guidelines for PPGCTA faculty and students regarding similarity checks and the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence tools, in accordance with Ordinance No. 39/PRPPG/UFC (2025)[cite: 3].
🔍 Similarity Check
All academic works (qualifications, Master’s dissertations, and PhD theses) must be submitted to a similarity check tool before scheduling the defense[cite: 10]. The generated report serves as a support document to ensure originality and proper citation[cite: 5, 10].
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Institutional Tool: UFC provides access to the Turnitin system for faculty members[cite: 22].
🔗 Access Turnitin UFC
- Requirement: The similarity report must be signed by the advisor and attached to the defense request in SIGAA[cite: 12].
The Program has defined the maximum allowed similarity index for texts as:
As established by the prerogative in Art. 2, II of the Ordinance[cite: 20].
🤖 Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The use of AI is permitted solely as auxiliary support and must adhere to the principles of transparency, human authorship, and academic integrity[cite: 25, 26, 27, 29, 34]. It is mandatory to declare whether AI tools were used or not in the work[cite: 34, 45].
🚫 It is PROHIBITED to use AI to:
- Generate original content, interpretations, or critical analysis[cite: 35].
- Write substantive sections (Results, Discussion, and Conclusions)[cite: 36, 37].
- Fabricate or alter data, images, or graphs[cite: 38].
- Insert unverified references[cite: 38].
✅ Permitted Uses (with declaration):
- Linguistic and grammatical revision[cite: 77].
- Initial idea exploration and literature screening[cite: 74, 75].
- Programming (code debugging)[cite: 80].
- Transcription and technical translation (with mandatory human review)[cite: 81, 82].
📝 Defense Scheduling Procedure
To request a defense schedule in SIGAA (Path: Portal Discente > Ensino > Conclusão) [cite: 13], the student must upload a single PDF file (max 10MB) containing the three documents below[cite: 48]:
Generated by Turnitin and signed by the advisor (Max. 35%)[cite: 12].
Annex I of the Ordinance. Mandatory even if AI was not used[cite: 45, 60].
Annex II of the Ordinance. Validation of the board composition[cite: 14, 98].
