GENERATIVE AI SYLLABUS STATEMENT SAMPLES
The syllabus statements collected here were identified by KSC faculty members during a workshop on AI syllabus statements in the Fall of 2023. These statements were chosen because they include a range of stances that faculty may choose to adopt when directing students about the use of AI in their classrooms. Those stances are "Specified / Delimited Use," "Ethical Use," and "No / Highly Restricted Use."
The syllabus statements samples were collected as a part of a larger project headed by Lance Eaton (see full resource here).
If you have drafted a syllabus statement that you are willing to share with your faculty colleagues, please email molly.parsons@keene.edu and it will be added to this resource.
Development as a writer requires personal investment and practice. Chat GPT and AI platforms are tools that good writers may rely on in some situations. Part of your development as a writer entails critically considering different occasions and developing a rationale for the appropriate use of AI writing tools. In this class, we ask that you keep an open line of communication with the instructor regarding the use of AI writing tools. It is important to consult your instructor BEFORE using them in an assignment. If, in consideration with your instructor, you do use Chat GPT or other AI tools, cite them in your Works Cited page and be prepared to argue a rationale for the appropriateness of their use. These are matters of concern because over reliance on technology can impede the growth of your writing skills and offset the learning outcomes for the course.
The purpose of assignments in this course is for you to demonstrate your writing and critical thinking skills while providing you with opportunities to grow as a communicator, thinker, and scholar. Writing skills, along with the course concepts you learn while writing, will help you develop as a person and valued employee who will succeed in your future career(s). I may sometimes incorporate the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT into your lessons and assignments. In these cases, AI is a valuable tool for learning. However, in instances where you are not specifically told to use AI, I ask you to embrace the challenges of learning, scholarship, and personal growth and write without using AI. Please let me know if you have any questions about the use of AI in this class.
As scholars, we have an obligation to share with our readers the sources and tools we used in creating our scholarship. This is both because it is dishonest to portray other people’s ideas as our own and because it is helpful to our audience to put our work in the context of the greater scholarly conversation. Readers may be curious to learn more about our subject; they may want to verify our information; or they may even want to create their own scholarship inspired by ours. In all cases, they will need to know what our sources were.
To this end, every paper should have two features indicating our reliance on outside sources:
The second should be an Artificial Intelligence Disclosure, which should contain the following statements:
I did not use artificial intelligence in creating this paper.
or
I did use artificial intelligence in creating this paper, namely ____________ (ChatGPT, Bard, etc.). I used it in the following ways (check which of the following acceptable uses were utilized):
Why is it important not to directly copy words from an AI engine into our texts? There are multiple reasons: first, this would be considered plagiarism (which means presenting others’ words as if they were our own); second, AI engines are notoriously unreliable on facts—anything they assert must be checked against reliable sources; third, AI engines reproduce biases and prejudices from their source material—it is incumbent on us to check and correct for bias; and finally, using AI to generate text may rob us of the chance to develop our own thinking on a subject. Think about it this way: the point in education is not to generate text artifacts. Rather, the point is to help us develop our own ability to think critically. Writing is a means to critical thinking, and we must do our own writing to cultivate our own true, not artificial, intelligence.
Writing is integral to thinking. It is also hard. Natural language processing (NLP) applications like ChatGPT or Sudowrite are useful tools for helping us improve our writing and stimulate our thinking. However, they should never serve as a substitute for either. And, in this course, they cannot.
Think of the help you get from NLP apps as a much less sophisticated version of the assistance you can receive (for free!) from a Bentley Writing Center tutor. That person might legitimately ask you a question to jump-start your imagination, steer you away from the passive voice, or identify a poorly organized paragraph, but should never do the writing for you. A major difference here, of course, is that an NLP app is not a person. It’s a machine which is adept at recognizing patterns and reflecting those patterns back at us. It cannot think for itself. And it cannot think for you.
With that analogy in mind, you will need to adhere to the following guidelines in our class.
Appropriate use of AI when writing essays or discussion board entries
Evidence of inappropriate AI use will be grounds for submission of an Academic Integrity report. Sanctions will range from a zero for the assignment to an F for the course.
I’m assuming we won’t have a problem in this regard but want to make sure that the expectations are clear so that we can spend the semester learning things together—and not worrying about the origins of your work.
Be aware that other classes may have different policies and that some may forbid AI use altogether
The Center for Teaching & Assessment of Learning at the University of Delaware has developed four sample syllabus statements at https://sites.udel.edu/ctal/advanced-automated-tools/#syllabus-language. Additional text for most of these recommendations is included at that webpage, including an acknowledgement of Spencer Ross's sample citation language for GPT-3.
Use prohibited Students are not allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course. Each student is expected to complete each assignment without substantive assistance from others, including automated tools.
Use only with prior permission Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course if instructor permission is obtained in advance. Unless given permission to use those tools, each student is expected to complete each assignment without substantive assistance from others, including automated tools.
Use only with acknowledgement Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course if that use is properly documented and credited. For example, text generated using ChatGPT-3 should include a citation such as: “Chat-GPT-3. (YYYY, Month DD of query). “Text of your query.” Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/” Material generated using other tools should follow a similar citation convention.
Use is freely permitted with no acknowledgement Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course; no special documentation or citation is required
You may use AI programs e.g. ChatGPT to help generate ideas and brainstorm. However, you should note that the material generated by these programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise problematic. Beware that use may also stifle your own independent thinking and creativity.
You may not submit any work generated by an AI program as your own. If you include material generated by an AI program, it should be cited like any other reference material (with due consideration for the quality of the reference, which may be poor).
Any plagiarism or other form of cheating will be dealt with severely under relevant Penn policies.
The beta release of Dall-E-Mini in July 2022 and ChatGPT in November 2022 are among many tools using artificial intelligence. There is a good possibility that using tools like these are going to become an important skill for careers in the not distant future (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/07/chatgpt-bot-excel-ai-chatbot-tech). In the meantime though, it's going to take a while for society to figure out when using these tools is/isn't acceptable. There are three reasons why:
Given these (important) ethical caveats, some scholars in computational sciences debate if the hype over AI-based tools-- especially as "automated plagiarism" tools-- should be heeded at all (https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2023/01/14/stop-feeding-the-hype-and-start-resisting/). For the time being, I'm tentatively, pragmatically augmenting my academic integrity policy with a policy regarding a responsible use of AI-based tools in my class. This policy was developed from a response by ChatGPT-3 (2023) and edited on critical reflection by me:
Academic integrity is a core principle at UMass Lowell and it's vital that all students uphold this principle-- whether using AI-based tools or otherwise. For my class, a responsible use of AI-based tools in completing coursework or assessments must be done in accordance with the following:
Special Note on AI: Utilizing ChatGPT or other AI tools is becoming more common. While I would prefer you not use these tools and instead commit to the productive struggle that is learning, I recognize that these tools are not going away. Rather than ban them, we will treat them similarly to other resources you use. This means you MUST follow the four points above.
Development as a writer requires personal investment and practice. Chat GPT and AI platforms are tools that good writers may rely on in some situations. Part of your development as a writer entails critically considering different occasions and developing a rationale for the appropriate use of AI writing tools. In this class, we ask that you keep an open line of communication with the instructor regarding the use of AI writing tools. It is important to consult your instructor BEFORE using them in an assignment. If, in consideration with your instructor, you do use Chat GPT or other AI tools, cite them in your Works Cited page and be prepared to argue a rationale for the appropriateness of their use. These are matters of concern because over reliance on technology can impede the growth of your writing skills and offset the learning outcomes for the course.
Guidelines for the use of AI in university courses
Additionally, this is short statement that may be included in syllabi: «In this course, the use of artificial intelligence systems is allowed as long as such use complies with four rules: (1) Informed use: that the student knows how the system works, its limitations and risks: (1) Informed use: that the student knows how the system works, its limitations and risks. (2) Transparent use: that the students report the used tool and how they used it. (3) Ethical use: that they do not pass off as their own the text generated by the system and that they apply citation rules (e.g., APA rules for ChatGPT). (4) Responsible use: that all information obtained through the system is checked against other reliable sources and that no personal or confidential information (their own or others’) is entered into the system when making queries. For more detailed guidance on these rules, see the ‘Guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence in university contexts (version 5.0)‘.»
Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools in [insert course number] To ensure responsible and ethical use of AI tools, the following policy has been established:
Suggested uses for AI
References
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000 Center for Faculty Excellence. (n.d.). Example policy statements for AI in higher education. In Teaching and Learning at Cleveland State University. Retrieved June 1, 2023, from https://pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu/teachingandlearning/chapter/statements/
Chan, C. K. (2023). A Comprehensive AI Policy Education Framework for University Teaching and Learning. ArXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2305.00280
Google. (2023). Google Bard: Personal communication. Google Bard [Large Language Model]. Retrieved from https://bard.google.com
McAdoo, T. (2023, April 7). How to cite ChatGPT. Apa Style. Retrieved June 2, 2023, from https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt
OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (June 1 version) Retrieved from https://chat.openai.com/c/fd0e917d-1d96-4c32-bf353071c5367ca2
Stanford University Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (2023, March 9). AI will transform teaching and learning. Let’s get it right. HAI. Retrieved June 2, 2023, from https://hai.stanford.edu/news/ai-willtransform-teaching-and-learning-lets-get-it-right
Warner Pacific University. (2023). Warner Pacific University Catalog 2022-2023 [PDF]. Retrieved from https://www.warnerpacific.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/catalog_2022_23_WPU_FINAL_web.pdf
Please note: This policy was drafted using the AI tool Google Bard to generate some of the ideas. (Google Bard AI language model, 2023). Additionally, AI tool ChatGPT was used to refine some of the language and provide feedback (OpenAI., 2023)
“All work submitted in this course must be your own. Contributions from anyone or anything else- including AI sources, must be properly quoted and cited every time they are used. Failure to do so constitués an academic integrity violation, and I will follow the institution’s policy to the letter in those instances.”
You may use AI programs e.g. ChatGPT to help generate ideas and brainstorm. However, you should note that the material generated by these programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise problematic. Beware that use may also stifle your own independent thinking and creativity.
You may not submit any work generated by an AI program as your own. If you include material generated by an AI program, it should be cited like any other reference material (with due consideration for the quality of the reference, which may be poor).
Any plagiarism or other form of cheating will be dealt with severely under relevant Penn policies.
The beta release of Dall-E-Mini in July 2022 and ChatGPT in November 2022 are among many tools using artificial intelligence. There is a good possibility that using tools like these are going to become an important skill for careers in the not distant future (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/07/chatgpt-bot-excel-ai-chatbot-tech). In the meantime though, it's going to take a while for society to figure out when using these tools is/isn't acceptable. There are three reasons why:
Given these (important) ethical caveats, some scholars in computational sciences debate if the hype over AI-based tools-- especially as "automated plagiarism" tools-- should be heeded at all (https://irisvanrooijcogsci.com/2023/01/14/stop-feeding-the-hype-and-start-resisting/). For the time being, I'm tentatively, pragmatically augmenting my academic integrity policy with a policy regarding a responsible use of AI-based tools in my class. This policy was developed from a response by ChatGPT-3 (2023) and edited on critical reflection by me:
Academic integrity is a core principle at UMass Lowell and it's vital that all students uphold this principle-- whether using AI-based tools or otherwise. For my class, a responsible use of AI-based tools in completing coursework or assessments must be done in accordance with the following:
You are likely to use generative AI such as ChatGPT this semester. As with other any other tool or resource, remember two important things:
Special Note on AI: Utilizing ChatGPT or other AI tools is becoming more common. While I would prefer you not use these tools and instead commit to the productive struggle that is learning, I recognize that these tools are not going away. Rather than ban them, we will treat them similarly to other resources you use. This means you MUST follow the four points above.
The Center for Teaching & Assessment of Learning at the University of Delaware has developed four sample syllabus statements at https://sites.udel.edu/ctal/advanced-automated-tools/#syllabus-language. Additional text for most of these recommendations is included at that webpage, including an acknowledgement of Spencer Ross's sample citation language for GPT-3.
Use prohibited Students are not allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course. Each student is expected to complete each assignment without substantive assistance from others, including automated tools.
Use only with prior permission Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course if instructor permission is obtained in advance. Unless given permission to use those tools, each student is expected to complete each assignment without substantive assistance from others, including automated tools.
Use only with acknowledgement Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course if that use is properly documented and credited. For example, text generated using ChatGPT-3 should include a citation such as: “Chat-GPT-3. (YYYY, Month DD of query). “Text of your query.” Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/” Material generated using other tools should follow a similar citation convention.
Use is freely permitted with no acknowledgement Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course; no special documentation or citation is required
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