SAGE connects research, teaching and assessment to help students use generative AI critically—and demonstrate the learning behind their work. One program brings together pedagogy, policy, AI literacy and assessment assurance.
Developed by Dr Mahmoud Elkhodr & Professor Ergun Gide
CQUniversity Australia · Open educational resources
Six steps for critical
AI-supported learning.
Clear expectations
within permitted AI use.
SAGE brings the decisions about AI use, the learning process, and the evidence of capability into a connected approach. Each part has a distinct role—and practical resources to help you put it to work.
The six-step SAGE framework makes evaluation, refinement and reflection part of learning with AI. Students work from their own understanding, test AI against disciplinary sources and justify their decisions.
Explore SAGE PedagogySAGE-AP translates permitted AI use into clear expectations for authorship, verification, disclosure and defensible work. Institutional and assessment rules set the permission boundary.
Read the assessment policyGenAI-101 offers eleven lessons on learning with AI, critical coaching, source checking and working with AI inside apps. The Student Guide turns the SAGE process into practical steps for assessment.
Explore learning resourcesDefend asks students to explain, justify, apply or adapt their work. Design proportionate checks at selected points in learning, matched to the capability, discipline and cohort.
Design a Defend checkpointDefend is a design principle, with assurance distributed where learning outcomes require direct confirmation. Its format and timing depend on the assessment context.
SAGE has developed through successive studies of how students use AI, exercise judgement and demonstrate understanding. Classroom findings inform the pedagogy, policy and resources.
Design activities around the capability students need to develop.
Examine student work, reflections and implementation experiences.
Investigate what the evidence reveals—and what it cannot establish.
Improve the program and make the next implementation more informed.
The program draws on constructive alignment, evaluative judgement, self-regulated learning and situated practice. Its publication record distinguishes direct SAGE studies from the wider scholarship on AI in education.
Explore the studies, their methods and limits, alongside student dashboards and implementation records.
Explore the research & evidenceThe six-step framework and its distributed Assurance by Design architecture.
Connecting AI permission to verification, student judgement and accountable authorship.
Embedding discipline-matched checks of individual capability in AI-integrated assessment.
Institutional incorporation, national resource sharing and international implementation show different ways SAGE is entering practice. Each has its own supporting evidence.
The official Guided–Assured Assessment Model Educator Guide includes the SAGE cycle and Student Orchestration Levels. The Academic Learning Centre also lists GenAI-101 in its student resources.
See SAGE in the official guideThree SAGE-affiliated resources are listed across assessment reform and student support. These listings help educators find the implementation guidance, literacy module and student-use research.
Explore the resource listingsA SAGE-guided computing intervention at Oxford Brookes College–Chengdu University of Technology extends the research into transnational education and disciplinary error checking.
Read the implementation evidenceA short introduction to SAGE’s development, student learning and wider use, prepared for the 2026 AAUT Program Award nomination.
Read the accompanying evidenceThe written evidence page provides the detailed program account and supporting sources.
Start with the part of the program that meets your needs. Adapt the resources to your learning outcomes, discipline and institutional requirements.
Identify the capability you want students to develop. Set clear AI conditions, scaffold the learning process and design a suitable way for students to demonstrate understanding.
Get the starter kitUse SAGE to inform a supported local pilot. Review the research, align with institutional policy and establish how learning, accessibility and staff workload will be evaluated.
Discuss an implementationCheck your assessment instructions first. Where AI is permitted, build the habits of checking sources, making your own decisions and explaining the reasoning behind your work.
Open your student guideRILTE—Research-Integrated Learning and Teaching Excellence—is a connected Community of Practice with a broader remit than AI. It brings educators and researchers together around scholarly teaching, curriculum design and collaborative inquiry.
Explore the RILTE community
SAGE continues to develop through classroom inquiry, disciplinary collaboration and dialogue with educators and students.
Meet the developers