All faculty in the College of Arts and Letters should include an AI Policy in their syllabus. Each instructor can determine their policy but at a minimum, your policy statement should include several elements.

• Define what you consider to be AI in your discipline/course:
  
  • You can name specific tools and/or the application or utilization of AI technologies
• Appropriate use statement. Outline your course policy on use of AI and penalties. There are a variety of possible usage cases and explanations:
  • Free or Unrestricted Use (If you require citation, make sure they know how to cite)
  • Restricted or Conditional Use (Be specific)
  • No Use (Make sure you tell students what types of research and support tools they can use)
• Provide a rationale for the policy that could include:
  • Why your discipline approaches AI in this way
  • How this policy supports the learning outcomes of the course
• Be upfront with students if you will use AI to check their work (and be aware that you should not upload student’s original work into any LLM that would release this data beyond JMU without student express permission). Even Copilot is not a failsafe way to check if a student has used AI, the results are only probabilities. We need to model openness and transparency with students by sharing whether and how we are using AI in the course

• Remember that no AI detector is failsafe. You should not use AI to check if a student has used AI. Look for other clues — non-existent references, assignment not responding to the prompt, a shift in “voice” and writing style from previous work, repetitive and unform writing structure, surface-level depth
• Your first response should always be to ask the student to meet with you for an open, non-accusatory conversation asking the student to explain their research or writing process and talk through the core ideas in the assignment
• Review and follow your course policy
• Document all interactions with the student
• Set expectations in email for what happens if there are additional suspicions
• Consider allowing students to rewrite or present in person, especially if this is a first-time offence
• If after talking to the student, you have multiple data points that indicate that this was unauthorized AI use, report to the Honor Council whether you reach an informal resolution or for a full process review.
  • Honor Code Options for Reporting

• Data Privacy / Security (No data leaves your machine)
• Lower Resource Consumption (Data Center power, water...)
• Equity / Parity (all students can use same model for an assignment)
• No Usage Restrictions / Token or Credit Limits (Interested in what Tokens are in AI? Read here)
• Offline usage (No internet needed past initial download of models)

If you are using any other AI tools (Claude, Open AI, Anthropic) you may need to file a Technology Solution Request (TSR) to approve this use. You must do this if any of these conditions are true:

• You are asking JMU to pay for a subscription
• You are entering JMU data
• You are using a JMU owned computer

Find more information on TSRs here.

You can self-enroll in a CAL AI Exploration Canvas page to access this guide and resources that will be updated.

Enroll in the CAL AI Exploration Canvas Page

There will also be a space for discussions and to seek support and collaboration across the college.