Generative AI Policies for Teaching & Learning

by Taylor Vanderveen & Ruth Poproski

Creating course policies for the use of Generative AI in your class can be complicated, most notably because there may be different contexts and situations in which you want the rules to be different for your students. This can also complicate things for students, who need clear information about their use of generative AI not only in your specific class, but across all of their different courses each semester.

This resource has been created to help you think through and make decisions about your course – focusing in on how different rules may be appropriate for different parts of your course.

The Basics

In general, course policies should include the following features:

Explicit statement of the rule, with the boundaries clearly explained.
Brief explanation of the rationale for the rule.
Use of personal pronouns (e.g., ‘you’ instead of ‘students’, ‘I’ (or ‘we’) instead of ‘instructor’ (or ‘instructor and TAs’)) – to help personalize the policies and begin to establish a sense of personal responsibility and agency on the part of your individual students.

Thinking it Through

Designing your policies for the use (or lack thereof) of generative AI is best approached as a pedagogical design decision. Rather than starting with the final decision (e.g., should students use AI or not?), start with your learning goals and work backward from there. Ideally, your course and assignment policies will help to focus student efforts on the core learning activities involved.

To get started, consider the following questions:

Which tasks represent critical learning moments, where productive struggle, decision-making, or sense-making will benefit students and/or represent demonstration of core learning outcomes?
Which tasks are necessary but not central to your learning goals (e.g., proofreading, formatting)? Could use of generative AI tools for these tasks free your students up to focus on deeper thinking?
Which tasks are new to students, and with which do they already have experience?

The AI Assessment Scale

One very useful tool is the AI Assessment Scale – developed in 2023 in a quest to introduce more nuance into discussions about the use of generative AI in teaching and learning. The AI Assessment Scale identifies five ‘levels’ of generative AI use:

No AI (Assessment completed without assistance and in a controlled environment, while students rely on their existing knowledge, understanding, and skills.)
AI Planning (Assessment emphasizes ability to independently develop and refine ideas (that may have been) generated through effective use of generative AI for planning, synthesis, and ideation (e.g., brainstorming, outlining, initial research, etc.).)
AI Collaboration (Generative AI may be used to help complete the task, while students critically evaluate and modify the AI-generated outputs.)
Full AI (Generative AI may be used to complete any elements of the task, and possibly being required for the assessment.)
AI Exploration (Generative AI used creatively to enhance problem-solving, generate novel insights, or develop innovative solutions to solve problems.)

We encourage you to explore the resources and research papers found on https://AIAssessmentScale.com/, to supplement and support your thinking about the use of generative AI by your students.

Special Features to Consider

As you think through your students’ use of generative AI in your course, you may also find it helpful to require students to include statements declaring/ citing their use of generative AI, and/or to request that students reflect on their use of generative AI in their work.

Declaration & Citation of Generative AI Use

Practices around the citation and declaration of the use of generative AI are still evolving. For citation guidelines, it is best to consult the style guides associated with your chosen citation style.

One promising practice is to ask students to include a statement with their assignment that provides a ‘declaration’ of their use (or lack thereof) for their assignment. Asking students to provide these declaration statements may help you evaluate their work, while holding students accountable for their decisions and actions.

Of course, requiring a declaration from students may also increase your own workload, as it provides you with another detail to attend to as you grade. Taking stock of this tradeoff is an important calculus as you develop your policy.

What does a declaration statement look like?

Declaration statements typically answer the following questions:

Which specific generative AI tools were used (e.g., ChatGPT, Copilot, Grammarly, etc.), and which versions of those tools?
For what purpose did you use these generative AI tools (e.g., brainstorming ideas, spelling, grammar, and punctuation, restructuring, etc.)?
What prompts did you input into the generative AI tools?
How did you incorporate the output you received into your work?

Sample Declaration Statements for Students

The following are examples of declaration statements that acknowledge use of generative AI for specific parts of a student’s work:

I acknowledge the use of Claude [claude.ai] to help me evaluate my essay outline.
I entered the following prompt: “Provide questions I should ask myself when evaluating my essay draft outline.”
I used the output at the initial stage of the assessment task to help plan my essay.
I acknowledge the use of Google Gemini to help brainstorm topics for an assessment.
I entered the following prompt: “Come up with five questions that would help a university student explore [topic].”
I used the output as a starting point for generating ideas before narrowing down the topic for my assessment.
I acknowledge the use of Grammarly in helping me to review my writing at the final stage of preparing my assessment.
I used the following prompt: “Suggest ways to improve clarity and concision. Provide general advice with examples. Do not re-write any of my writing.”
I reviewed the feedback generated by Grammarly critically and, based on this, revised the writing using my own words and expressions.
I acknowledge the use of ChatGPT 3.5, July 20 version (https://chat.openai.com/) to generate a case study about the challenges of sustainability and labor ethics in the chocolate industry.
I acknowledge the use of Bing Image Creator powered by DALL-E (https://www.bing.com/images/create) to generate an image of an alien landscape.

Alternatively, you might ask them to provide or attest to a more general statement, like one of the following:

This document was created with assistance from [name specific generative AI tools]. The content has been reviewed and edited by me, and I take responsibility for the contents of my submitted work.
I have not used any GAI tools or technologies to prepare or complete any part of this assignment.

Incorporate Student Reflection on their Use of Generative AI

Asking students to reflect on their use of generative AI for their work serves several purposes – including building personal responsibility for their work, applying critical thinking skills to their choices, and increasing their AI literacy. It can also reveal helpful information and details to you, about how your students are thinking about and approaching the use of generative AI for their work.

Sample Reflection Prompts

How did generative AI help you achieve your learning goals for this assignment? What aspects of the learning process were not assisted by generative AI? Explain.
What steps did you take to ensure the ethical use of generative AI? How could your improve your use of generative AI in the future?
Explain how and why you used GAI and include the prompts you used. Then, answer the following question: Who is the author of this work? Explain your reasoning.
Are your original ideas present in your work?
Are you spreading misinformation or perpetuating harmful biases, etc.?
How did your use of generative AI in this assignment help advance your understanding of the content or learning objectives?
Have you been transparent about your use of generative AI?
Have you cited your sources and the generative AI properly?
Have you plagiarized (knowingly or unknowingly)?

Source: AI Syllabus Statements & Course Policy Examples, Kent State University

Sample Syllabus Policies

The following examples are general, course-level syllabus policy examples representing varying stances on the use of generative AI in a given course (highly permissive, moderately permissive, or maximally restrictive). In addition to these examples, you can explore a growing repository of classroom policies related to generative AI, curated by an instructional designer in Rhode Island.

Example 1: Highly permissive

In this course, thoughtful and creative engagement with AI is encouraged. Therefore, you will not be penalized for using Generative AI tools (GAI) in this course.
However, remember that AI tools are best used to augment, not replace, our skills. It is important to be aware of the limitations of GAI tools. For example,

GAI may exhibit bias and inaccuracies. You are responsible for assessing the validity and applicability of any GAI output incorporated into your work.
If you provide minimum effort prompts, you will receive low quality results. Practice careful prompt engineering.
Be cautious with data privacy. Refrain from entering information of a highly personal or confidential nature into a GAI tool.

To gain a deeper understanding of GAI tools and enhance your interaction with GAI output, you can explore the following resources:

Note also that any work not created by yourself should include a proper source citation. For Generative AI, that may include prompts, specific AI used, and date. For full details on how to properly cite AI-generated work, please see the APA Style article, How to Cite ChatGPT.

Example 2: Moderately permissive / mixed

The use of Generative AI (GAI) tools is not generally permitted in this course, but will be permitted for select assignments. [Alternative opening statement that is more permissive: You are welcome to explore the use of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools for your work, but use of GAI tools should be limited to providing support as you develop your thinking and knowledge base for an assignment.] Specific assignments will include details about whether use of GAI tools is allowable or not, and why. If you are uncertain about using a particular tool to support your work, please consult with me before using it.

Please note that you may not represent output generated by a GAI tool as your own work. Any such use of GAI output must be appropriately cited or disclosed, including quotation marks and in-line citations for direct quotes. Including anything you did not write in your assignment without proper citation will be treated as an academic misconduct case. Suspected unauthorized assistance, plagiarism, or other violations of UGA’s “A Culture of Honesty,” will be reported to the Office of Academic Honesty. For full details on how to properly cite AI-generated work, please see the APA Style article, How to Cite ChatGPT.

If you are unsure where the line is between collaborating with GAI and copying from GAI, I recommend that you do not have your assignment and the GAI tool open on your device at the same time. Instead, take notes in your own words while you interact with the GAI tool, then use your notes to remind you of what you’ve learned and to inform your work. Never copy output from GAI tools into your assignment. Instead, use your interaction with the tool as a learning experience, then close the interaction down, open your assignment, and let your assignment reflect your improved understanding. (Sidenote: This advice extends to AI assistants that are directly integrated into a composition environment or grammar modulation tool.)

Finally, GAI is highly vulnerable to inaccuracy and bias. You should assume GAI output is wrong unless you either know the answer or can verify it with another source. It is your responsibility to assess the validity and applicability of any GAI output used.

Example 3: Maximally restrictive

To ensure you develop and master the foundational knowledge and skills in this course, the use of generative AI (GAI) tools is strictly prohibited. This includes all stages of your work process, even the preliminary ones. This prohibition extends to AI writing tools like Grammarly and Wordtune, as well as GAI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, Writesonic, Rytr, and Rtutor [this list might be amended to include discipline or task-specific tools that apply to your course]. If you are uncertain about using a particular tool to support your work, please consult with me before using it.

Communicating & Discussing your Policies with Students

Students often find themselves faced with a wide variety of different policies for the use of generative AI, both within and across their different courses. With this in mind, we encourage you to think about additional ways to discuss and communicate your policies to your students, to help them stay on track and make appropriate decisions for your class. The goal is to increase transparency and clarity, and to reduce future challenges or problems in your course and with you students.

Traffic Light System

One useful heuristic for communicating your policy is to provide students with a ‘traffic light’ breakdown of how generative AI may or may not be used in your course. The goal is to share guidance with students about which uses of generative AI are definitely appropriate (‘green light’), those for which the use may be questionable (‘yellow light’), and those uses of generative AI which are definitely prohibited for the assignment (‘red light’).

Adapted from Davis (2024), this chart provides an example of a chart you might adapt for your students, to help them understand what is and is not permitted on a particular assignment:

Feature	Green Light: Appropriate Use	Yellow Light: Warning – At Risk Practices	Red Light: Stop! Inappropriate Uses of Generative AI
Authorship	You are the author of your assignment, and take responsibility for its contents.	Reliance on generative AI tools for a significant part of the assignment.	You are no longer the author of the assignment.
Transparency & Citation	You make it clear where and how you have used generative AI in your work.	You do not make all use of generative AI tools clear.	Deceptive, hidden use where you use AI but don’t declare it with your assignment.
Assignment Stage	Generative AI helps you get started with planning or ideas. Generative AI helps you with proofreading before submission of your assignment.	You use generative AI tools to generate part of your assignment, or to re-write an assignment at the final stage.	You ask an AI tool to generate a reference list instead of doing research yourself.
Scope of Use	You use generative AI to help with small changes in the development of your assignment (e.g., correcting spelling).	You use generative AI for a lot of the development of an assignment.	You put the assignment prompt or exam question into an AI tool and use what is generated, with little or no changes.
Alignment with Policy	You use generative AI tools in line with guidance from your instructor.	You use generative AI in ways your instructor has not recommended.	You use generative AI when the assignment instructions state that it must not be used.

References

Davis, M. (2024). Supporting inclusion in academic integrity in the age of GenAI. In Using Generative AI effectively in higher education: Sustainable and ethical practices for learning, teaching, and assessment (pp. 21–29). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003482918-4

Perkins, M., Roe, J., & Furze, L. (2024, December 12). The AI Assessment scale revisited: A framework for educational assessment. arXiv.org. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.09029

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