CoS Policies and Processes
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College of Science Artificial Intelligence Guidelines
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has become prevalent, and it is important that as
educators we consider when and how their use can enhance learning and when it is best to limit
their use. We encourage you to consider ways of incorporating AI as a tool in your courses
rather than simply avoiding its use. As we move forward, expect that AI is a tool that students
will likely use in their future work. The reality is that students are using AI tools now. Learning
how AI tools are used in your field may enhance your ability to incorporate AI into your
classroom in productive and meaningful ways and guide your thinking on when and how to
prevent its use when appropriate.
COURSE POLICIES RELATED TO AI USE
It is at the discretion of each faculty member to determine when and how AI can be used, if at
all, in their courses. The course expectations related to AI use should be clearly and repeatedly
explained to students (see more information in the section below). We suggest utilizing the
icons below (and discussed in more detail below) to easily indicate to students the AI-related
policies of your course.
We encourage you to consider how students will use AI to complete assignments and consider
developing assignments that cannot be easily completed with the use of AI. Assignments can
focus on skills and values that AI cannot such as creative thinking and problem solving rather
than memorization or reiteration of content. You can also consider creating assignments and
projects in courses where the use of AI will not be useful and where students build community,
practice team building skills, innovate and express creative thinking. Faculty could also consider
requiring students to submit drafts of written work at multiple stages and/or write their
assignments in a program that has tracking (e.g., Google Docs).
While not all courses and assignments will be able to adjust to some of the suggestions above,
it is important to consider how AI will be used for your course assessments and how you can
creatively incorporate or discourage this in your courses through assignment creation.
SYLLABI AND ASSIGNMENT STATEMENTS FOR AI USE
It is strongly recommended that your syllabus and assignment instructions clearly articulate the
course policies for the use of AI. This provides clear direction for students who might otherwise
assume that policies in a different course automatically transfer to your course. These
expectations should also be discussed in class. See the Center for Teaching and Learning
(CTL) website for example syllabi statements. Below are icons you can use in your syllabi and
on assignment instructions to easily indicate to students the policies for the course and
assignment related to AI use. These icons are being encouraged among faculty across campus
for consistency for students, we highly recommend utilizing them on your syllabi and all
assignment instructions for quick student recognition.
You may consider adding a statement of integrity prior to submission for your assignments. For
example, students may need to check a box upon submission saying they didn’t use AI to
generate their assignment, or they used AI as a tool as allowed by course policies, but they did
not plagiarize content from AI.
Please note, syllabi should never include a statement of how violations of academic honesty will
specifically change grades in the course. Academic sanctions for academic misconduct are
determined only by the College Hearing Officer, not the faculty, and thus syllabi should not
specifically articulate any grade sanctions for academic misconduct.
DETECTION OF AI USE
Online AI detectors (e.g., ZeroGPT, GPTZero) have been deemed to be inaccurate and
inconsistent detectors of the use of AI (see article posted to the CTL website and other research
to support this). The same is true for the AI detector in TurnItIn in Canvas. As a result, the use
of the detection platforms is discouraged and cannot be used as sole evidence of AI use in a
potential academic misconduct case (see the below section for more information).
ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT WITH AI
If course policies around AI use are violated it is possible that academic misconduct occurred.
Academic misconduct related to AI use may fall into one of the following 3 categories:
• Cheating – The use of AI as a study aid or resource without prior, explicit authorization
from faculty.
• Plagiarism – Representation of the work of AI as their own without proper citation.
• Falsification – Fabrication of information from a source that does not exist.
Currently the Code of Student Conduct doesn’t explicitly mention AI, however, the inappropriate
use of AI still falls under the provisions found in Section 4.2. The language of the Code is
currently being updated to reflect how the use of AI could be academic misconduct.
If faculty have a situation that constitutes a violation of the Code of Student Conduct and
academic misconduct related to AI, faculty may choose to discuss the situation with the student
and provide a warning or assignment resubmission for the same point value, or proceed with an
academic misconduct case submission if it is deemed that an academic penalty is warranted.
The evidence submitted to support the case will need to include more than the AI detectors
(ZeroGPT, GPTZero, etc.). The reason for this is because these AI detectors have been
deemed to be inaccurate detectors of AI use and can lead to biases in determination of
culpability. OSU does not consider AI detectors to be a reliable indicator of AI use, as stated on
the CTL website. A high AI probability score can encourage additional scrutiny but does not
definitively prove a student used AI on an assignment. Other types of evidence that may be
submitted for an academic misconduct case involving AI could include:
• Evidence of a different writing style from previous work submitted in the course.
• The topics discussed in the submission are not topics covered in class or part of the
course.
• The answer for the submission does not directly address the prompt.
• The answer for the submission is vastly outside of the guidelines of the prompt (e.g., word
count too high, writing style inconsistent with expectations, etc.).
• The submission is highly similar to a response generated by AI when the assignment
prompt is entered in AI.
• Citations provided are fictitious.
Please note, per OSU policy faculty may not issue academic sanctions for any academic
misconduct that may occur in their class. Any potential formal determination of responsibility
and sanctions must be determined by the College Hearing Officer and the formal academic
misconduct process. Please see the COS Academic Misconduct Reporting Process for further
details and submit academic misconduct cases here.
You are welcome to reach out to me as the College Hearing Officer and the OSU Student
Conduct & Community Standards office for support and questions at any time.
RESOURCES FOR FACULTY
• The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has a website with information and guidance
for faculty related to AI, including information about syllabi statements and AI use.
• The E-campus website has guidance for AI use in the online classroom.
• The University of Sydney has produced a public Canvas course for students, built by
students, about AI in education. This may be an excellent resource for you to look over
and provide to your students.
ICONS FOR SYLLABI AND ASSIGMENTS
Icons for syllabi
Icons to be used in syllabi related to general course policies for the use of Artificial Intelligence
(AI). Embed these icons into your syllabi with the description to clearly convey course policies
related to AI use.
Do Not Use: For this course, students are not permitted to use AI applications such as
ChatGPT, Bard, or Bing for any purpose.
Minor Uses Permitted: For this course, you must be the author of all work. You may use AI in
some minor ways. For example, unless otherwise specified in the assignment, you may use AI
to [faculty insert examples of what is acceptable. For example: generate ideas, polish or edit
text you have drafted, create an outline of an essay, modify or design presentation slides,
review content, quiz yourself, or for other studying purposes]. You may NOT use AI to [faculty
insert examples of what is not allowed. For example: for any purpose while taking a quiz or test,
generate content that is directly used in an assignment (such as code, text, images, or other
media), solve problems from assignments, write a first draft of a paper or essay, write all or part
of a discussion post, or analyze data.] Always review individual assignments for specific
instructions. [faculty insert optional statement: If you are using language generated by an AI
app, you must properly attribute that use by putting that language in quotation marks and adding
a citation just like you would when you copy language from human authors.]
AI Integration by Assignment: In this course, students are permitted to integrate AI into some
of the substantive work of the course. Review individual assignments to determine permissible
uses. Unless otherwise noted, you should be able to demonstrate how you contributed to an
assignment. [Faculty add specific requirements for AI use. For example: you are required to
keep drafts of assignments and generative AI logs that demonstrate how you used AI and what
portion of an assignment’s content was generated by AI].
Specific Expectations and Notes: [faculty add specific expectations: if you prefer not to use
one of the above course level icons and would rather provide specific expectations, use this
icon and provide detailed instructions for students on the use of generative AI here].
Icons for assignments
Icons to be used in assignment instructions related to the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Embed these icons into your assignments with the description to clearly convey assignment
policies related to AI use.
No AI permitted on this assignment.
Generating ideas: for example, using AI to generate an idea, thesis, slogan, design, image,
etc.
Creating outlines: for example, using AI to outline a paper, assignment, argument, etc.
First draft work product generation: for example, using AI to generate initial work product for
an assignment like a first draft of a text, code, graphic, spreadsheet, PowerPoint, etc.
Analyzing data: for example, using AI to generate conclusions based on analysis of a data set.
Rewriting, editing, polishing, debugging: for example, using AI to rewrite portions of a report,
document, or using AI to debug code.
Intra-sentence text edits: for example, using AI to edit punctuation or grammar, using
Grammarly, MS Word, or other tools to proofread, offer synonyms, fix grammatical errors, other
limited text edits within a sentence. Does not include rewriting entire sentences.
AI Icon Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
GUIDELINE HISTORY
Revision Date
Description
Initial version by Jessica Siegel, Associate Dean of Academic and
Student Affairs