AI has become increasingly a part of our students' lives and as such requires educators to engage in a meaningful conversation about AI in the context of the classroom and increasingly, within the civic and professional context we are preparing them for.
While some aspects of AI are in line with current standards that cross disciplines-avoiding plagiarism for example; the diversity of our learning contexts makes pinpointing a singular syllabus statement inadequate for every single classroom situation.
If using AI will be included in your course content please consider including the following statement in your syllabus.
Sample statement
As part of our class activities, students will be asked to create personal accounts for artificial intelligence services and/or software. Students should familiarize themselves with the Terms of Use for these services as well as the expectations around data privacy and use. Students should not share private, or otherwise sensitive information or data, about themselves or others, with these tools, as there is often no guarantee of data privacy.
https://www.registrar.northwestern.edu/faculty-staff/syllabi.html#generative-ai
Intellectual integrity is vital to an academic community and for my fair evaluation of your work. All work completed and/or submitted in this course must be your own, completed in accordance with WWCC's (link) Guidelines on Academic Integrity. You may not engage in unauthorized collaboration or make use of ChatGPT or any other generative AI applications at any time.
During this class, we may use Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. You will be informed as to when, where, and how these tools are permitted to be used, along with guidance for attribution. Any use outside of this permission constitutes a violation of Academic Integrity (link)
The use of Generative AI tools, including ChatGPT, is encouraged/permitted in this course for students who wish to use them. You may choose to use AI tools to help brainstorm assignments or projects or to revise existing work you have written. However, to adhere to scholarly values, students must cite any AI-generated material that informed their work (this includes in-text citations and/or use of quotations, and in your reference list). Using an AI tool to generate content without proper attribution qualifies as academic dishonesty.
It is important that faculty and administrators have ongoing conversations within their department/school about the appropriate penalties for unauthorized use of an AI. It is also important to think about the appropriate level of penalty for first-time offenders and those who repeatedly violate policies on the use of AI. It is also important to have honest and open conversations with your students. According to Flower Darby (2023),
“a big part of the conversation should focus on cheating and plagiarism. A recent talk on academic integrity by Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the academic-integrity office at the University of California at San Diego, helped me think about how to frame this discussion with students. Cheating isn’t new, and neither is ‘contract cheating’ (paper mills and other schemes to pay someone to do your homework), though the latter seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. One way forward is to emphasize how cheaters are only cheating themselves. In her talk, Gallant described a track coach who would tell runners they could ride a scooter around the track, but that that wouldn’t make them faster or stronger runners. Think about yourself like that coach, she said. Talk with students about the value of doing the work of learning for themselves instead of outsourcing it to a machine… Better yet, coach students on the effective use of AI tools related to classwork (Darby, 2023, par. 11).