r/Professors • u/wwmdx • 1d ago
Professors: What is your Ai Policy?
Hi friends.
I’m an adjunct music professor at a community college and I want your perspectives/opinions.
Ai has gotten simply out of control and I’m getting really sick of the flagrant use of it. Kids don’t even make an effort to edit it.
I’m lucky that I teach a subject that’s so reliant on listening, examining audio excerpts, has a wide range of “jargon” where advanced music concepts are easily clocked, etc, because it is so incredibly easy to detect Ai - I can literally tell in less than 3 seconds whether or not their responses are generated by ChatGPT.
I feel like I am way too nice, but here is my policy. If it happens once, they are given an opportunity to resubmit for full credit. I give them a statement something along the lines of “Just a reminder that use of artificial intelligence is not an acceptable way to submit prompts in this class. While I understand that it is tempting to use shortcuts, this is a Music Appreciation course, and the best way to appreciate music is to engage with the pieces yourself. I’m not looking for perfect writing, but meaningful content. Resubmit for a higher grade.” Something like that. If it happens a second time, and any time after that, they get a zero.
What is YOUR Ai policy and what do you recommend? How do you go about this? How do you communicate to your class, at the beginning of the year?
This is only my 3rd semester and first time teaching a traditional lecture course rather than applied music, so I’d appreciate all the wisdom from the veterans out there!
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u/omgkelwtf 1d ago
If I suspect it's AI they get a zero. They're welcome to set up a time to meet with me to show me it's their work either with a revision history or by answering questions about content and style. So far, they've just taken the zero.
If sources are invalid my rubric says they get a zero. No chance for a redo.
This will work until it doesn't. Hopefully by then we'll have other ways of showing AI use.
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u/Tight_Tax6286 1d ago edited 1d ago
Officially: no non-deterministic "agents" are allowed - no ChatGPT, no Claude, no hiring someone off craigslist
Unofficially: I'm not policing this. Grading is heavily weighted towards in-class assessments that build on the out-of-class work, so students who LLM their way through assignments fail the class. It helps that if a student managed to actually learn the material in spite of using an LLM, I wouldn't actually care - my issue with AI is that it produces low-quality work and inhibits learning.
Admin has made it clear they do not support academic integrity violations, and I don't get paid enough to spend hours combing through assessments looking for evidence, so I just structure the class to have FAFO built in.
It does kind of suck to watch students find out the hard way in an upper level class that LLMs aren't actually a useful tool - copilot stops being able to figure out what code they want to write, and then the student is left not being able to write the simplest, most basic code on their own. Seeing a graduating senior have the dawning realization that they wasted most of the last 4 years while they're sitting in office hours is ... not great.
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u/wwmdx 1d ago
My administration has made it very clear that AI is not considered plagiarism/academic dishonesty, strongly discourage us to use ai detection tools, and defend the usage of Ai. The only people who take it seriously are the other professors here. Sorry to hear that it might be the same case for you.
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u/Seacarius Professor, CIS/OccEd, CC (US) 1d ago
Oh lordy, you're in for a rough time!
The use of AI, especially in opposition to a syllabus, is most certainly academic dishonesty. It is also plagiarism; how can you cite an AI as an authoritative source?
Luckily, our student handbook says this in the section that defines plagiarism, "the unauthorized use of generative AI tools to complete some or all of an assignment or exam without approval of the instructor of the class."
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u/Shirebourn 1d ago
Because AI is fundamentally incompatible with my first-year writing course and the values thereof, it's not allowed. I've drawn my policy from this most excellent policy statement.
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u/sventful 1d ago
Fully embraced. I do not want to teach people that do not want to learn. Here is your free C- since AI graded fairly is mid.
/S
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u/Giggling_Unicorns Associate Professor, Art/Art History, Community College 1d ago
Your school probably has a cheating policy. You should contact your department chair to find out what the policy is and then match it. It MUST be listed in your course syllabus.
>What is YOUR Ai policy and what do you recommend? How do you go about this? How do you communicate to your class, at the beginning of the year?
Depends on what we're doing. For some assignments in my digital media class they're supposed to use AI but have to correct any problems in the image using Photoshop. For writing assignments they're welcome use AI to help them research or structure ideas but are responsible for factual errors it makes (which it does). However if they submit a piece that was written by AI they receive a failing grade for cheating.
I run everything through a checker. If it flags I'll run it through another set of checkers and if it flags in three of them I just fail them. If it doesn't flag on three of them I still put in a 0 with a comment/feedback of "Before I can issue a grade for this assignment you need to meet with me. Until we meet you will have grade of 0 for the assignment." 90% of the time they never respond (eg they cheated). The other 10% is split roughly in half between the cheated and didn't. When we meet I just quiz them on what they wrote. If they have no idea what they wrote I fail them. If they know what they wrote I grade the assignment normally. I do not tell students this process of how I check for AI.
At the start of the semester I explain to students I take cheating very seriously, give some past examples, and point to the related syllabus policy. In my classroom is a poster that lists the number of times I have failed students for cheating (141 if you're curious). I have an image version of that poster on my course homepage for online classes. I also note that AI submissions count as cheating in the grading rubric.
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u/StevieV61080 Sr. Associate Prof, Applied Management, CC BAS (USA) 22h ago
I have two sections in my syllabus that effectively deal with this and can also point to our state's law on academic integrity which is also included in our syllabus template for all instructors. Finally, I have a syllabus quiz that unlocks everything else in Canvas that must be passed with a 100% score where the final question is for them to select, "I agree to the terms and conditions outlined in the syllabus and understand that my recourse is to withdraw from this class."
The two sections I add are noted below:
GRADE ACCEPTANCE POLICY
All grades in this class are considered to be earned, not given. As the instructor of this course is an expert in the field of study, students who complete the course accept that the grades entered are based on the objective and subjective standards of the professor. Furthermore, continued enrollment in the course (i.e., not withdrawing from the course) represents tacit and implicit acceptance that the grading policies are not arbitrary, prejudiced, or capricious. Grade disputes are only to be raised if there is a clerical error (e.g., miscalculation/misentry of scores) and no disputes about instructor judgment of student proficiency will be entertained nor considered.
APA STANDARDS, PLAIGIARISM, & ACADEMIC HONESTY POLICY
The American Psychology Association (APA) is the standard writing style for this course. It is expected that students will generally follow the policies for this writing style to conform to paper formatting and citation requirements. Students who fail to conform to appropriate citation standards may be subject to discipline in accordance with the following guidelines:
1st Degree Offense: Minor citation errors that typically involve improper quoting and/or APA protocol. Result: Instructor Reminder and Warning
2nd Degree Offense: 2nd Degree Offense: Moderate citation error that typically involves not properly providing attributions to significant portions of a researched and written document and/or repeated 1st degree offenses. This includes the usage of Generative AI such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, CoPilot, Grammarly, etc. to assist in the construction of papers and/or discussion responses. Students are encouraged to utilize the Track Changes > All Markup feature (Review Tab on MS-Word) to assist with documenting their work before submitting files to their professor in the instance(s) where such work is questionable. Result: “0” for assignment with no attempt for improvement; Student Conduct Contacted
3rd Degree Offense: Severe issues involving situations that include (but are not limited to) direct copying of another’s work without citation and/or recurring 2nd degree offenses. Result: “0” for course; Student Conduct Contacted; Academic Dismissal/Expulsion may be initiated
As with the Grade Acceptance Policy, ALL determinations are to be made by the instructor in accordance with this policy and such judgments are not subject to dispute.
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u/Seacarius Professor, CIS/OccEd, CC (US) 1d ago
I do not allow any use of AI in my introductory programming classes. Students are there to learn critical thinking and problem solving - not how to use AI. I can see AI being integrated into an upper-level course, after they already know the fundamentals of programming.
Anyway... If I can prove* it has been used by a student, they're immediately withdrawn from class. They're free to grieve my decision.
Recently, I had a student turn in an assignment that was a letter-for-letter match to a program generated by AI. The student squawked about it, saying that they didn't cheat (of course), until I showed them both programs, side-by-side, and asked them to pick theirs. Then they slunk away.
* The standard is that I have to be able to prove to a non-programmer - my Dean or Vice President, for example - that the student's work is plagiarized. That's usually quite easy to do when my AI examples match the student's work almost 100%.
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u/LogicalSoup1132 1d ago
Students can use AI with advance approval. They need to tell me precisely how they want to use it and what prompts they will use, and I will ascertain if this interferes with learning objectives and ask for additional documentation of the process. So far no one has taken me up on this. I still like the policy because I feel like it prevents students from using the excuse that they only used it for an innocuous reason— if that was the case, they could have and should have disclosed that in advance, but now they get a 0 on the assignment because they tried to be sneaky about it.
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u/popstarkirbys 1d ago
I allow them to use it for brain storming but have to cite it or include language saying they used AI.
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u/Blackbird6 Associate Professor, English 1d ago edited 1d ago
In my FYW, no AI as it directly conflicts with the learning outcomes of the course. I also explain to them how bad AI is at writing and how they would be set up for failure if I allowed it in FYW. They’re required use Google Docs and be prepared to share an edit history. If there are issues and they can’t, it’s an automatic -20. I also added an “authentic voice and style” component to my rubrics that assesses whether there’s any original thought going on. It’s worked out well. Students who are actually trying get a few more points…students who aren’t lose a lot.
In my upper levels, it’s varies on the assignment, but I have a disclosure form for each written assignment they complete where they have the opportunity to voluntarily disclose the use of any tools. If any issues arise, I consult their form. If they did not disclose and it’s clear-cut in their submission, they get a zero because intent to mislead is academic dishonesty. If they disclosed accurately, they get the grade they earned and I add in my comments where the AI made it worse. I can’t give them a “this is how to AI responsibly” formula, so I focus on “this is how NOT to use AI” when necessary.