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Low reported severity Internal Action

Luleå university board suspends two students for six weeks over unauthorised AI use whose submitted work cited invented sources, local paper reports

The disciplinary board of Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in northern Sweden decided six disciplinary cases and suspended five students from teaching for six weeks, from 14 September to 25 October 2026, Norrbottens-Kuriren reported on 21 September 2026. In two of the cases, according to the newspaper, the matter was unauthorised use of AI in which the submitted work contained invented source references, among them a reference to a book that does not exist. The other suspensions concerned plagiarism of a classmate's lab report and unauthorised notes at an exam; a sixth student received a warning. The report does not name the AI tool, the courses or the students and quotes neither the students nor the university.

AI system
Unidentified AI writing tool
Occurred
14 Sept 2026 to 25 Oct 2026
Reported
21 September 2026
Event location
Sweden
What the AI did
Communicated with the person
Reported harm
Educational Harm
Whose AI use
Their own AI use
Setting
Education
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source
3 claims: 3 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
2 people

AI system as recorded: An unnamed AI tool whose use the disciplinary board treated as unauthorised; the submitted work contained invented source references, including one to a non-existent book, according to Norrbottens-Kuriren

What Happened

The decisions. The disciplinary board of Luleå University of Technology decided six disciplinary cases. Five students were suspended from teaching for six weeks and a sixth was given a warning, Norrbottens-Kuriren reported on 21 September 2026. The suspensions concerned cheating and unauthorised aids.

The AI cases. In two of the cases, the newspaper writes, the matter was unauthorised AI use in which the submitted work contained invented source references, among them one to a book that does not exist. One other student was suspended for plagiarising a classmate's lab report and two for unauthorised notes at an exam; the warning went to a student who had not shared a screen during a digital exam, which the board judged to lack intent to cheat. All suspensions run from 14 September to 25 October 2026.

What is not known. The report names no AI tool, course or student, does not say how the board established the AI use and quotes neither the students nor the university. Whether either student appealed is not reported.

Reported harm

According to Norrbottens-Kuriren, two students were suspended from teaching for six weeks, from 14 September to 25 October 2026, after the disciplinary board found unauthorised AI use in work that cited invented sources.

How Harm Occurred

Work that two students submitted contained source references invented through unauthorised AI use, according to the report of the disciplinary board's decisions; the board suspended both from teaching for six weeks.

Outcome

Resolved

The LTU disciplinary board suspended the two students, with three others suspended in unrelated cheating cases, from teaching for six weeks, from 14 September to 25 October 2026, according to Norrbottens-Kuriren. No appeal is reported.

What remains unknown

  • Which AI tool was used, in which courses and how the board established the AI use.
  • The date of the board's decisions and whether either student appealed to the administrative court.
  • What the students said in their defence.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. Norrbottens-Kuriren reports that two of the disciplinary cases concerned unauthorised AI use in which the submitted work contained invented source references, including one to a non-existent book; the article's headline says AI invented a source ('AI hittade på källa'), and the board suspended the two students for six weeks. The tool is not named and the way the board established the AI use is not described.

3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported The disciplinary board of Luleå University of Technology decided six disciplinary cases, suspending five students from teaching for six weeks and giving a sixth a warning.

Causal attribution. The newspaper's report of the board's decisions; the decisions were not inspected.

  • kuriren.nu(opens in new tab) supports · Swedish
    'Disciplinnämnden vid Luleå tekniska universitet har fattat beslut i sex disciplinärenden.'; 'Fem studenter stängs av från utbildningsverksamheten i sex veckor.'
Reported Two of the cases concerned unauthorised AI use in which the submitted work contained invented source references, including one to a book that does not exist.

Causal attribution. The newspaper's account of the board's grounds; the method by which the AI use was established is not described.

  • kuriren.nu(opens in new tab) supports · Swedish
    'I två fall rör det sig om otillåten AI-användning där inlämnade arbeten innehöll påhittade källhänvisningar, bland annat till en bok som inte existerar.'
Reported All the suspensions run from 14 September to 25 October 2026.

Causal attribution. As reported by the newspaper.

Sources

1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in the original Swedish (HTML body and stripped text); the page is marked as not free to access (isAccessibleForFree false), so text beyond the inspected passages may exist. Passages are quoted in Swedish; the English renderings in the record are translations by the research agent (an AI), not by a human translator. Applies to s1.

Event countries: Sweden. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

The decisions were taken by the disciplinary board of Luleå University of Technology in Luleå, Sweden, as the report states. The students' own countries are not stated.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-23: Published as a concrete sanction for prohibited AI use: two students were suspended for six weeks after the disciplinary board found unauthorised AI use in work that cited invented sources. The facts rest on one local newspaper's report of the decisions.

People described

Two students at Luleå University of Technology, not otherwise described

People reported harmed in this case

2 people

2 AI participants · 0 other people harmed

Two students: the report says two of the six cases concerned unauthorised AI use; each case concerned one student.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#academic-integrity#invented-references#student-suspension#university#sweden

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). Luleå university board suspends two students for six weeks over unauthorised AI use whose submitted work cited invented sources, local paper reports. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-lulea-university-disciplinary-board-suspends-two-students-over-unauthorised-ai-use-with-invented-references

BibTeX

@misc{2026_lulea_university_disciplinary_board_suspends_two_students_over_unauthorised_ai_use_with_invented_references,
  title = {Luleå university board suspends two students for six weeks over unauthorised AI use whose submitted work cited invented sources, local paper reports},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-lulea-university-disciplinary-board-suspends-two-students-over-unauthorised-ai-use-with-invented-references}
}

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