From AI assistance to responsible academic agency: A human-centered framework for generative artificial intelligence in higher education

Generative artificial intelligence has moved from a peripheral educational technology to an ordinary part of university study, writing, research, and assessment. Existing scholarship has documented substantial opportunities in personalised support, accessibility, feedback, and productivity, while also identifying persistent concerns involving misinformation, academic misconduct, privacy, bias, inequitable access, and cognitive dependence. However, the debate is too often organised around a narrow question: whether artificial intelligence should be allowed or prohibited. This conceptual article argues that the more consequential question is whether students retain responsible academic agency when artificial intelligence participates in their learning. Drawing on research in artificial intelligence in education, self-regulated learning, academic integrity, human-centred artificial intelligence, and institutional governance, the article develops a Responsible Academic Agency Framework. The framework integrates six interdependent domains: purpose and learning alignment; cognitive ownership and human judgment; epistemic verification; transparency and attribution; equity and privacy; and institutional governance and assessment validity. The central proposition is that artificial intelligence contributes to education only when it strengthens rather than substitutes the learner's capacity to set goals, evaluate evidence, make decisions, explain conclusions, and accept responsibility for academic work. The framework provides practical guidance for students, educators, university leaders, and technology providers, and offers a research agenda for evaluating learning quality rather than focusing solely on adoption. The article contributes to the literature by shifting the discussion from tool access and rule compliance toward the preservation, demonstration, and development of human agency within artificial intelligence-mediated higher education.