As AI-based tools become more prevalent, students are looking for faculty to provide guidance on how they can use AI tools or when they are not allowed. Establishing clear AI usage policies helps create fair academic integrity standards for everyone. This quickguide provides examples, resources, and reflection questions to help faculty communicate to students how students can or cannot use artificial intelligence (AI) for course work. Clearly communicating expectations to students ensures students understand what is required of them, reduces confusion and anxiety, and enables them to take ownership of their learning by providing clear goals and criteria for success.

instructor speaks in front of class

Instructors fall on a spectrum of not allowing students to use AI at all to intentionally integrating AI into the class and teaching AI-specific skills. While this page provides example statements, any statement should reflect an instructor’s learning goals, teaching philosophy, and course content.

Faculty should communicate appropriate use of AI, if permitted at all, on the syllabus. Instructors may also need to provide assignment-specific instructions. For example, students may not be permitted to use AI on a weekly homework, but can use it for a final project (brainstorming, editing, etc.).

Recognizing that statements vary by course and instructor, faculty can reflect on the following questions to help them develop a statement about appropriate AI use for a syllabus or specific assignment.

  • How, if at all, are students allowed to use AI in the course? Be specific about the boundaries including what tasks and/or tools are acceptable or unacceptable. Consider how those policies support what you want students to learn in the course including how AI use can facilitate or hinder specific skills you want them to gain (e.g., coding, writing, problem-solving, etc.).
  • Will you provide assignment-specific instructions about the use of AI that replace or augment general course guidelines?
  • If students are allowed to use AI, how should they describe and disclose its use?
  • Would it help to explain to students your motivation for why you allow or the use of AI or not? How will you facilitate a conversation with students about the statement?
  • Where should students go for support or tools (e.g., HopGPT)? How can you facilitate equitable access for all students?
  • How should students communicate with you or the teaching assistants if they have questions about whether their use of AI is appropriate?

Finally, remember the boundaries, use cases, and integrity issues around AI in the classroom are evolving quickly. Individual faculty may develop new AI-use statements every semester or even adjust their guidelines during the semester.

Example Statements

The following statements align with the AI Assessment scale, one typology for describing how much students are permitted to use AI to complete assignments.

AI Assessment Scale

NO AIThe assessment is completed entirely without AI assistance in a controlled environment, ensuring that students rely soley on their existing knowledge, understanding, and skills.
AI PLANNING AI may be used for pre-task activities such as brainstorming, outlining and initial research. This level focuses on the effective use of AI for planning, synthesis, and ideation, but assessments should emphasize the ability to develop and refine these ideas independently.
AI COLLABORATIONAI may be used to help complete the task, including idea generation, drafting feedback, and refinement. Students should critically evaluate and modify the AI suggested outputs, demonstrating their understanding.
FULL AIAI may be used to complete any elements of the task, with students directing AI to achieve the assessment goals. Assessments at this level may also require engagement with AI to achieve goals and solve problems.
AI EXPLORATIONAI is used creatively to enhance problem-solving, generate novel insights, or develop innovative solutions to solve problems. Students and educators co-design assessments to explore unique AI applications within your field of study.

CC BY-BC-SA Perkins, Furze, Roe & MacVaugh (2024). The AI Assessment Scale

No AI Permitted

“The use of artificial intelligence (AI) to produce any writing for this course is not allowed. A student who is found to have used AI-generated content for an assignment will receive an F for the assignment and may fail the course. A notation will be made in departmental records. Students enrolled in IFP I and II are required to sign an honor code statement acknowledging that they understand these policies.” 

– Introduction to Fiction and Poetry (2023)

AI Planning

“The lure of ChatGPT is everywhere. For each paper assignment, I will generate a sample paper with ChatGPT to share with the class and show why it is an F. Feel free to use ChatGPT to correct your grammar and vary your sentence structure. Feel free to feed ChatGPT a complex passage to help understand it (like you would have a conversation with a semi-competent, but enthusiastic friend). But do the reading for yourself. Do the writing for yourself. Be extremely wary of trying to pass off ChatGPT writing as your own. I also do research on AI and can tell AI writing immediately. More than any grade, it is a waste of your time and our time. As we have for centuries, we are in a race with machines, and continue to be in the process discovering what is valuable in being human (and that is actually one of the themes of this course). By ceding your education to machines, you cede your humanity. And yes, of course, I used ChatGPT to help with this syllabus (especially the repetitive formatting).”

– History of Economic Thought (2025)

“AI programs such as ChatGPT are powerful tools that can help you become a better engineer. I encourage you to use these tools throughout this course to help you understand concepts presented in class, generate ideas and brainstorm, and improve your writing skills. I do not, however, want you to use AI programs in place of thinking. The assignments are intended to help you develop knowledge, understanding, and skills, but they will not be effective if you do not put in the work to complete them. Using AI in place of thinking will not make you a better engineer and may diminish your intelligence. Also, depending on AI for an accurate and complete solution to a problem is foolhardy, as these programs are notorious for outputting fictitious information as fact. Unauthorized use of AI to solve any problem on a homework assignment will result in a zero for that assignment.”

– MechE Freshman Lab (2026)

AI Collaboration

“Students should not use generative AI to write any required essays or solve problems. This is considered use of unauthorized electronic devices or software as stated in the university ethics policy. More important, the purpose of these assignments is to give you practice developing the important skill of writing and applying course concepts. Students are allowed to use generative AI to brainstorm ideas or ask questions about how to solve a problem, but the final work should be their own narrative. Students who use generative AI should indicate how they used it in their homework or paper. The purpose is not to raise suspicion, but to help the instructor identify possible sources of incorrect information. Generative AI has a bias to give an answer, even if it is not correct. This is especially the case with more sophisticated topics such as those studied in this course. When using generative AI, be sure to verify any information provided against the course materials. If you have any questions about appropriate use of these technologies, please consult the instructor.” 

– Introduction to Social Statistics (2024)

“Reintroduction to Writing helps students understand writing as an intellectual practice—a way of thinking, exploring, and connecting. This kind of work, of course, does not lend itself to outsourcing. LLMs generate text; they do not write. The process of writing is the process of thinking and learning. However, we will learn about LLMs in the context of education and writing, and we’ll discuss our approach together as a class. While the majority of our work will be AI-free, we may decide, for example, to experiment with LLMs in specific assignments. In the meantime, I encourage you to take a look at UWP’s Working Statement on Teaching & Writing in the Context of Large Language Models. Ultimately, in this class as well as in others, three rules apply:  

  1. If you’re not sure if AI is permitted, be in touch with your instructor.
  2. Assume that  AI use is not permitted until you hear otherwise. 
  3. When you do use AI, describe your process. Cite (or not) according to the conventions of the academic discipline.”  

– Reintroduction to Writing (2026)

For coding, it is now common to use Copilot in industrial or research settings. Therefore, you are allowed to use LLMs as a supplementary tool for your project and coding assignments (L3 and L4), but they should not be used to generate the final report you submit. It is important to think critically and evaluate your approach to form a strong understanding of the fundamental concepts. If you use any generative AI like Copilot to assist in your coding, you must also submit the set of prompts that you used.

– Computational Protein Structure Prediction and Design (2026)

Full AI

“If you choose to use Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) software (for example ChatGPT, Bard, or Microsoft Copilot) in completing assignments for this class, it must be accompanied by a proper reference.  If precise language generated by the software is used, then it must be quoted.  The reference must include the website and specific prompts used to generate the referenced output.  For an example of how to reference, you may want to consult APA (https://apastyle.apa.org/).”

– Advanced Cell Biology (2025)

After reading the case and before meeting with your Team to work on the assignment, complete these tasks individually:

  1. List the ethical implications you recognize in the case.
  2. Prompt a generative AI to provide you with the ethical implications associated with producing a car for sale to the public that can cheat emissions inspections. Do not share your list with the LLM (or at least not yet). Your question (#1) was more broad; do not ask the LLM that question.
  3. Read the full output – do not scan! Then evaluate it: are there any implications you did not consider when reading the case? Do you agree with its output?
    • You may need to try various prompts to attain a result you believe will be useful to the case.
    • Take care not to use Volkswagen in the question as you do not want “answers” to the case in the response.
    • You might want to share your own list now (only those pertaining directly to question 2) and ask it to help you write one cohesive list, eliminating or combining duplicates and similar ideas. Be sure to remove any identifying information (such as the company name) from your query.
  4. Bring the results to your LG meeting along with your own evaluation of the ethical implications. 

Nothing from the above tasks need be documented in your memo. However, any concepts or ideas generated by the AI used in the memo must be cited. See the “AI Use in EML and Ethics” document for specific citation guidance.

Why are we using AI in this assignment? In this context, we’re using it to:

  • practice writing prompts that efficiently and effectively result in useful content while avoiding using AI in ways that rob us of learning;
  • practice seeing AI as a co-worker rather than as a replacement for our own thinking;
  • generate a broader list of ethical implications than students often generate when working on their own.

– Case-based Learning Courses in Center for Leadership Education (2026)

AI Exploration

“This course engages both a ‘history of data’ and the ‘data of history’ by exploring American labor, consumer and business history. Students will learn how to think critically about how data are made and organized. They will then use that data to build arguments and visualizations about social and economic change over time. Throughout the course, we will learn to use various tools such as Google Sheets, Python, and Chat GPT for data analysis. No prior experience with statistics or programming is necessary, but students should come with a desire to learn.”

– Course Description from AI & Data Methods in History (2025)

 

Conversations with Students

“I encourage you to read UWP’s Working Statement on Teaching & Writing in the Context of LLMs. We will discuss this question as a class, and the rules for generative AI may vary from one genre of assignment to another. But two guidelines always apply: 

  1. When in doubt, be in touch with your instructor. If that’s not possible, then do not use generative AI of any kind. 
  2. If you do use generative AI, cite. JHU policy is that if an instructor doesn’t know that you’re using AI/LLM, then you are in violation of the Homewood Undergraduate Academic Ethics Policy“

    – Reintroduction to Writing (2026)

Guiding Students on How to Cite Their Use of AI

  • When using AI as a source of ideas (not for a draft):Some of this content was ideated with (tool used) assistance; final writing is my own. URL.
  • When using AI for a draft or parts of a draft that you heavily edit: Some of this content was created with (tool used) assistance, guided by my own editorial input and oversight. I take full responsibility for the work. URL (if available).
  • When using AI to help format: I wrote the content of this memo and used (tool used) to format it with recipients’ names, dates, and some repeated content. URL (if available).
  • When using AI to suggest edits to your own draft: I acknowledge moderate use of (tool) in reviewing drafts of this material and suggesting revisions for clarity. I reviewed and edited the final content and I take full responsibility for the work. URL (if available).
  • When using AI to assess data: I used (tool) to identify patterns and outlier results. I reviewed these for accuracy and logic and take full responsibility for the analysis.

– Cases in Workplace Ethics (2026)