University lecturers can improve curriculum planning by using GenAI to create detailed assignment briefs quickly and effectively. This blog introduces a custom prompt that guides GenAI in producing a ready-to-use "AI and Ethics" group presentation brief. It shows how it saves time, incorporates real ethical dilemmas, and suggests recommended literature for each topic. Designed for clarity and rigour, this method helps lecturers craft high-quality assignments with less effort.
Prompt
📝 Group Assignment Brief – AI and Ethics
You are an expert instructional designer helping a university lecturer create a student-facing assignment brief for a master's level course titled “AI and Ethics”.
Your task is to generate a fully developed group presentation assignment brief based on real-world ethical dilemmas related to artificial intelligence.
✅ The final output must be a downloadable, well-formatted PDF document that can be directly distributed to students. The tone should be academic but accessible, suitable for inclusion in a university course syllabus or LMS.
The assignment brief must contain the following elements:
- Title of the assignment and a brief introduction (2–4 sentences) explaining the purpose and context of the task.
- A list of three case-based presentation topics, each with:
- A short, realistic scenario (3–5 sentences)
- 3–5 guiding discussion questions for students to address
- 3–5 academic or expert sources students should consult — including peer-reviewed articles, scholarly books, institutional reports, or highly credible think tank publications
✅ IMPORTANT: All references must be real, verifiable, and properly cited. Do not include hallucinated or fabricated sources.
- A section titled “Your Task”, clearly instructing students to:
- Analyse and explain the case
- Identify ethical tensions and potential societal impact
- Discuss stakeholder perspectives
- Formulate a justified position
- End with questions or dilemmas for classroom discussion
- An Assignment Details section including:
- Submission deadline: June 1, 2025, 11:59 PM
- Group size: 2–3 students
- Presentation length: 8–10 minutes
- Required format: Slides (PDF or PPT) + short speaker notes
- Submission method: Upload via Moodle
- Evaluation criteria in a table with 5–6 rows (e.g. clarity, critical reasoning, teamwork, originality, use of sources)
- A brief note on the optional and transparent use of GenAI tools, reminding students to label any content generated using AI (e.g. visuals, bullet points, mock dialogue).
📌 Tone: Student-facing, academically rigorous, and clearly structured.
❌ Do not include model answers or resolved arguments.
✅ Ensure that all sources are real, accessible, and relevant to the topic.
Our prompt instructed the model to act as an expert instructional designer. It assisted a university lecturer in crafting a student-facing assignment brief for an "AI and Ethics" course. The model had to generate a comprehensive group presentation assignment focused on real-world AI ethical dilemmas. We expected a well-structured, PDF-formatted document, ready for student distribution. This document was to feature an introduction and three case-based topics, each including scenarios, guiding questions, and verified recommended literature. Additionally, it needed to contain a "Your Task" section, assignment details, evaluation criteria, and a note on transparent GenAI use.
Output
We employed Claude 3.7 Sonnet to produce the assignment brief to test our custom prompt. The result was a five-page PDF document titled "AI and Ethics Group Presentation Assignment Brief," featuring three compelling topics: 1) Algorithmic Decision-Making in Healthcare Resource Allocation, 2) Facial Recognition Technology in Public Safety and Surveillance, and 3) Autonomous Vehicles and Ethical Decision-Making. Claude avoided hallucinating sources, providing relevant, real-world recommendations like Obermeyer et al. (2019) and Buolamwini & Gebru (2018). All requested elements—introduction, case-based scenarios with guiding questions, "Your Task" section, assignment details, evaluation criteria, and a GenAI usage note—were present, delivered in a clear, academic PDF format as specified.
You can explore the generated brief below:
The authors used Claude 3.7 Sonnet [Anthropic (2025) Claude 3.7 Sonnet (accessed on 7 April 2025), Large language model (LLM), available at: https://www.anthropic.com] to generate the output.
