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Introduction

At Georgian College, program areas and/or courses can have their own course policies/guidelines around artificial intelligence (AI) usage.  All policies/guidelines must align with Academic Regulation #8: Academic Integrity [new tab]. This article provides suggestions of how faculty may communicate their AI policies/guidelines for their course through a syllabus statement regardless of AI approach.

What?

Everyone has a different approach to the use of AI in their classrooms and their daily work. You might be at the “red light” level of wanting to mitigate all use of AI for yourself and your students.  Or you could be at the “yellow light” level of wanting to support students and yourself to use AI. Or you could be at the “green light” level of wanting to elevate the use of AI in your course work and in your students' course work. (Auburn Online, 2024a). One of the influences that helps you decide your coloured light is your field’s use of AI.  If your graduates will be using AI in their work let this guide your classroom policies. 

 MITIGATE (red light): Looking for a short-term solution for redesigning and reframing assessments to reduce the likelihood that students will use AI tools to complete assessments. 

SUPPORT (yellow light): Supporting students and yourself to learn about AI tools by trying them out and discussing what was learned as part of the design of assessments and courses moving forward.

ELEVATE (green light): Reimagining assessments and courses to incorporate the new capabilities offered by ever increasing number of AI tools. (Auburn Online, 2024a).

Regardless of if you use artificial intelligence or not or if you would allow your students to use artificial intelligence (AI) or not, the key message is clear communication about your course policies.

According to Flower Darby, author of Small Teaching Online, students want to know for each and every assessment: “what” do you want me to do, “why” do you want me to do it, and “how” do you want me to do it.  These thoughts include usage of artificial intelligence.  Including a clear written statement in your course syllabus and with each assessment and activity helps to convey this message.

So what?

Your artificial intelligence syllabus statement should be a reflection of how you will use AI and how you expect your students to use AI. Consider these six key questions as you write your statement: (Auburn Online, 2024b).

1.  Under what conditions will you use AI? Under what conditions will you allow your students to use AI?
2.  How will you acknowledge your use of AI? How will you expect your students to acknowledge the contribution of AI in their work?
3. What advice and/or clear guidelines should be established regarding the propensity of AI to generate deceptive data (i.e. hallucinate)?
4. How will you expect students to be accountable for the AI output?
5. How will you demonstrate, emphasize, and motivate the ethical and responsible use of AI among your students?
6. How will you engage your students to provide feedback or collaborate with you on your policy at the beginning of the course? And at the end of the course?

Keep in mind, positive, permissive language is more welcoming and inclusive than negative, authoritative language. Try to avoid telling students what they cannot do and focus on what they can do.

Now what?

Implementation is just as important as the writing of the syllabus statement. Just telling students to read the syllabus is not enough.  Engage students in a discussion about “why” you have an artificial intelligence syllabus statement and what it means to you and to them. Provide regular reminders of your statement to provide opportunities for students to link this course policy with the course learning outcomes.  Students need to see, hear, and be reminded of the AI syllabus statement (course policy) with each and every assessment and activity. (Auburn Online, 2024b). 

Some implementation ideas can include:

• Having a class discussion
• Demonstrating how you used AI to create your lesson/assignment etc.
• Having students “play” with AI as an in-class activity.
• Giving students opportunity for formative assessment (low stakes) before attempting the summative assessment (higher stakes).
• Ensuring that all your assessment communication (instructions, grading scheme, marking and feedback) are consistent and include reference to your AI syllabus statement.

Want to learn more?

• The Sentient Syllabus Project (2023) offers Syllabus Resources - Google Docs (CC-BY-ND-SA) that contains some great ideas about AI and assessing materials, performance and other assessments. It is written based on three principles: An AI cannot pass a course, AI contributions must be attributed and true, and AI uses should be open and documented.
• If you are looking for AI syllabus statement examples, try Syllabi Policies for AI Generative Tools - Google Docs. This is a growing collection of shared statements from across post-secondary institutions. This resource is external to Georgian College.  It is your responsibility to ensure that Georgian's policies and regulations are reflected in your syllabus.

References

Auburn Online, (2024a). Module 5: What Do I Need to Rethink in Terms of the Exams, Papers, or Projects I Assign?. In The Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Auburn University, Teaching with Artificial Intelligence. catalog.auburn.edu

Auburn Online, (2024b). Module 6: Formulating Your Policies. In The Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning at Auburn University, Teaching with Artificial Intelligence. catalog.auburn.edu