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The article argues that efficiency-obsessed, market-driven conceptions of the doctorate increase vulnerability to AI misuse and reduce meaningful engagement with scholarly responsibility and knowledge creation. Drawing on doctoral education literature, it offers ethical considerations for generative AI applicable to doctoral candidates and proposes that institutional concerns can catalyze renewed focus on knowledge and knowers.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/transformation-in-higher-education-foregrounding-doctoral-knowledge-and-knower-in-the-age-of-generative-artificial-intelligence/582207/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/transformation-in-higher-education-foregrounding-doctoral-knowledge-and-knower-in-the-age-of-generative-artificial-intelligence/582207.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Ophelia","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-15","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",14,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"Why does the article link generative AI with increased vulnerability in doctoral education?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"It argues that when the doctorate is treated as a product acquired quickly, conversations about scholarly responsibility and the nature of knowledge creation are reduced, making misuse of AI more likely.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"What two fundamental purposes of doctoral education does the article emphasize?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"Doctoral programmes should facilitate knowledge creation and develop autonomous researchers who can contribute to knowledge, including cultivating a researcher identity.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"How does the article propose institutions respond to concerns about AI misuse?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"It suggests using common worries about AI misuse as a catalyst to turn focus back to the knowledge and knowers at the heart of doctoral education.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},582207,1792165101,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":24,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145,"preview_page_count":4},7971461741311,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000253aff267980c6?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779345379180704826","Transformation in Higher Education  \nISSN: (Online) 2519-5638,(Print) 2415-0991  \n~~ ~~ Page 1 of 5  \nForegrounding doctoral knowledge and knowerin the age of Generative Artificial Intelligence  \nAuthor:  \nSioux McKenna1   \nAffiliation:  \n1Centre for Postgraduate Studies, Rhodes University, Makhanda, South Africa  \nCorresponding author:  \nSioux McKenna, [s.mckenna@ru.ac.za](s.mckenna@ru.ac.za)  \nDates:  \nReceived: 17 July 2025  \nAccepted: 04 Nov. 2025  \nPublished: 09 Dec. 2025  \nHow to cite this article:  \nMcKenna, S., 2025,‘Foregrounding doctoral knowledge and knower in the age of Generative Artificial Intelligence’, Transformation in Higher Education 10(0), a653 . [https://doi](https://doi). org/10.4102/the.v10i0.653  \nCopyright:  \n© 2025. The Author. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4 .0) license ([https://](https://)[ ](https://)[creativecommons.org/](creativecommons.org/)[ ](creativecommons.org/)[licenses/by/4.0/](licenses/by/4.0/)) .  \nRead online:  \nScan this QR code with your smart phone or mobile device to read online.  \nWhile Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) presents new challenges for doctoral education, it also offers an opportunity to refocus doctoral programmes on their fundamental purposes: contributing to knowledge and developing critical researchers. This article draws on the literature on doctoral education to contend that a fixation on efficiency and market-driven outcomes has made doctoral education particularly vulnerable to the misuse of AI. This is because seeing the doctorate as a product to be acquired within a minimum time diminishes the likelihood of substantive conversations taking place about scholarly responsibility and the nature of knowledge creation. By outlining a few ethical deliberations about Generative AI pertinent to all doctoral candidates, this opinion article optimistically suggests that the common concerns about the misuse of AI in our institutions might act as a catalyst, turning the focus onto the knowledge and knowers of doctoral education.  \nContribution: The emergence of Generative AI, such as Large Language Models ChatGPT, Claude and DeepSeek, has led to concerns about authorship in the doctorate. This article suggests that we should instead use this potential threat as the impetus to turn the focus onto the knowledge and knower purposes of doctoral education.  \nKeywords: doctoral education; Generative AI; critical scholarship; research development; postgraduate education; LLMs.  \nIntroduction  \nThere are significant variations in doctoral education across countries and disciplines, includingthe range of supervisory structures, the inclusion of publications or creative outputs, the use of a viva, whether there are coursework requirements, and so on (Council on Higher Education [CHE] 2023) . Despite this, there exists a remarkable consensus around the world on the two fundamental objectives of doctoral education.  \nFirstly, doctoral programmes should facilitate knowledge creation. In South Africa, the Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (CHE 2013:40) defines this as making ‘a significant and original academic contribution at the frontiers of a discipline or field’. While what constitutes the new knowledge that doctoral education requires remains highly contested, there is general agreement that doctoral research should advance scholarship.  \nSecondly, doctoral education should develop autonomous researchers who have acquired the attributes expected of someone capable of contributing to knowledge – what we might term the cultivation of the ‘knower’ (Boud & Lee 2009) . While there are marked differences in the dispositions that different fields expect of expert knowers (Maton 2014), there is agreement that the doctoral graduate should embody a ‘researcher identity’(Castelló et al. 2021) . In South Africa, the Qualification Standard for Doctoral Degrees (CHE 2018) articulates this identity broadly","cbCaifTLEljg1aH9","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifTLEljg1aH9","pdf",339180,"English","# Introduction\n## Objectives of doctoral education\n# Generative AI and doctoral education\n## Ethical deliberations and implications","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article link generative AI with increased vulnerability in doctoral education?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that when the doctorate is treated as a product acquired quickly, conversations about scholarly responsibility and the nature of knowledge creation are reduced, making misuse of AI more likely.\"},{\"question\":\"What two fundamental purposes of doctoral education does the article emphasize?\",\"answer\":\"Doctoral programmes should facilitate knowledge creation and develop autonomous researchers who can contribute to knowledge, including cultivating a researcher identity.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article propose institutions respond to concerns about AI misuse?\",\"answer\":\"It suggests using common worries about AI misuse as a catalyst to turn focus back to the knowledge and knowers at the heart of doctoral education.\"}]","Transformation in Higher Education - Foregrounding doctoral knowledge and knower in the age of Generative Artificial Intelligence | PDF",1792042823,13]