LibGuides: Artificial Intelligence (AI): Home

Sauk Valley Community College's AI Policy Statement

SVCC faculty members are tasked with the responsibility of showing students how to use artificial intelligence (AI) ethically and appropriately. Ethan Mollick, an influential and prolific researcher of AI, divulges the following challenge to students and faculty alike with the following statement: “As artificial intelligence proliferates, users who intimately understand the nuances, limitations, and abilities of AI tools are uniquely positioned to unlock AI’s full innovative potential” (48). Artificial intelligence has indisputably been a ubiquitous agent for transforming academic landscapes since its inception two years ago. Whether faculty members opt to or elect not to integrate these new technologies into our own courses should be a straightforward set of standards for reckoning with these ever-prevalent and increasingly pervasive tools.

SVCC faculty members must be transparent and explicit about their preferences for AI use and specify the individualized applicable policy in their syllabus, in class, and on Canvas to provide students with clear instructions for AI use in each class.

Mollick, Ethan. Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, Portfolio, 2024

See below for faculty considerations in regards to artificial intelligence usage in the classroom.

Information Accuracy

Generative tools offer many capabilities and efficiencies that can greatly enhance our work. To what extent we want it to enhance our students’ work is an ongoing consideration faculty members need to address. Instructors who choose to allow the use of AI assistance on any assignment should show students how to verify the accuracy of AI-derived information as well as how to cite it.

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat

Privacy

When creating assignments requiring AI use, faculty members need to consider the necessary discretion in respecting student confidentiality and student data protection. For additional information, refer to the section on Privacy in the Institutional Procedures section relating to FERPA.

FERPA Procedure

Syllabus Language

SVCC instructors recognize the need for clear stipulations for when AI use is expected, or anticipated, or forbidden altogether. With instructor consent, students may be permitted to use AI to assist in creating ideas, outlines, papers, and projects. AI may also be used as a collaborator or tutor, but any text generated and submitted as a final product in a course must be the student’s own creation.

It is important for students to consult the class syllabus to determine the instructor’s policy as to whether AI tools will be permitted for use in completing assignments, taking tests or exams, or developing a project, essay or speech, and if so, the extent to which it is allowed, and how to cite it.

When using AI tools, students must consider issues related to information accuracy, privacy, and academic integrity.

Information Accuracy

AI-generated content may be misleading, biased, or inaccurate. Generative AI technology may create citations to content that does not exist. Responses from generative AI tools may also contain content and materials from other authors that may be copyrighted. It is the responsibility of students to review the accuracy of any AI-generated content when deciding on its possible use in the assignment.

Privacy

Students should also exercise caution to safeguard their input and interactions with all AI tools because anything that they share can be used as training data for AI. Given that, students should generally refrain from sharing anything of a personal nature. For more information, please refer to the section relating to Privacy and FERPA.

Academic Integrity

Intellectual honesty is imperative to an academic community and for the faculty member’s fair evaluation of students’ work. All work submitted in this course must be the student’s own, completed in accordance with SVCC’s academic guidelines, plagiarism statement, and this section of the syllabus regarding AI use and potential misuse by students.
If student’s use AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, Claude, Bard, Bing CoPilot, Gemini, etc. to generate material for assessment that they then represent as their own ideas, research, and analysis, they are not submitting their own work. Intentionally using a third party, paid or unpaid, including artificial technologies, to produce, create or revise any assignment that students submit as their own work for assessment is deliberate cheating and constitutes academic misconduct. Students must obtain permission from their professors before using any AI tools for assignments in their courses. If it has not been specified within particular assignment guidelines, the default expectation is that students are not to use any AI tools. Using AI tools without instructor permission is a violation of students’ academic integrity. As a result, students will receive a zero for the assignment and may be withdrawn from the class. The instructor will also file an academic dishonesty form to report the incident.
If students are permitted to use AI tools, appropriate documentation needs to be included for clear attribution of these AI tools. The following website link illustrates the relevant information necessary for correctly citing in accordance with MLA expectations: https://style.mla.org/citing-generative-ai/. The following website link illustrates the relevant information necessary for correctly citing in accordance with APA expectations: https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/how-to-cite-chatgpt.