What to include in your AI course policy statement

An effective syllabus is designed to motivate learning, define learning goals, explain the structure of the course, offer support, and so on—which also applies to any statements about AI. Many of the strategies for writing effective syllabi in general, such as using student-centered language, aiming for transparency and precision, providing examples, and using the syllabus as a starting point for conversations with students, would apply here as well (Gannon, 2023). Remember that some students may not be aware of campus policies or have varying degrees of preparation for navigating such issues, so they would likely benefit from a clear and comprehensive statement about AI use in your course.

Consider the following when developing your AI course policy:

• What is the policy and what tools does it apply to specifically?
• When does it apply? What conditions or contexts allow or preclude the use of AI?
• What processes and consequences result from non-compliance?
• What rationale and reasoning guide this policy?
• How do you provide support to students in relation to this policy?
• How does the policy show support for student well-being?

Ideas to get started

Below we provide options for ideas and wordings that you might use to begin crafting your own course policy.

Type of policy

• Yes, always allowed
• Yes, but...
• No, but...
• No, never allowed

Specific tools it applies to

• AI chatbots (such as ChatGPT, Google Bard, Claude, Bing Chat) 
• AI image generators (such as DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, Adobe Firefly)
• AI code generators (such as CoPilot, Tabnine, Cody)
• AI audio or music generators (such as Amper, AIVA, Soundful)

Conditions and contexts

• Only for specific assignments
• Only specified AI tools
• Only when students openly explain how and why they used AI tools
• Only when students and the teaching team consent to having their data entered into AI tools
• Only when used for purposes that are not private, sensitive, or high-risk
• Only with supervision during class, section, or office hours
• Only after students have gained skills for using chatbots appropriately
• Only by request and in consultation with the instructor or teaching team
• Only with your own data. Do not enter private, sensitive, or copyrighted data from others into AI tools without their consent.
• Only prohibited for graded assignments; for non-graded assignments, students may use chatbots
• Must cite the AI tools and prompts they use