Artificial Intelligence (AI)’s impact on learning has sparked deep conversations among professors worldwide. Since AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini have become popular, students have used them for tasks such as research and to help them better understand class content. However, without clear regulations, students can also use AI in ways that can lead to plagiarism or a lack of understanding of the material they are supposed to learn.
At Doane University, professors are at different stages in incorporating AI into their classrooms. Some professors encourage students to use AI because AI literacy is becoming an important skill for entering the workforce. Other professors, however, are opposed to using AI in the classroom.
Doane’s new AI policy is intended to help both teachers and students set clear expectations for how AI can be used in the classroom. The policy was approved toward the end of last academic year and is beginning to become the standard for AI at Doane. The AI policy currently included in Doane’s syllabus addendum will eventually be replaced by the new policy.
Nathaniel Wilson, Director of Forensics and Assistant Professor of Practice, was chair of the committee involved in creating the policy. According to Wilson, the policy provides students with expectations for how they should engage with generative AI while also giving faculty flexibility in deciding how AI will be used in their individual courses.
“The policy tells students how they are supposed to engage with generative AI,” Wilson said. “The majority of this policy gives a lot of autonomy to faculty because it says, ‘Here’s the base standard.’”
The policy also includes academic integrity and the use of AI; it has guidelines for citing AI, but it also focuses on the ethical use of AI and the potential for AI-generated content to contain bias.
The policy states that “Doane students should approach content with a critical mind, and take care to check for their own biases when ingesting generated content.”
This means students are still responsible for the content they submit, even when that content was generated by AI. If a student uses AI to create biased or discriminatory content, the student can still be held responsible.
“On a policy level, what we were really interested in is making sure that students understood they’re still held liable to the standards of nondiscrimination policies, even when using LLMs,” Wilson said.
Because the policy is still new, professors will play an important role in helping students understand how these expectations work.
Phil Weitl, Professor of English, discussed how teachers can help students think critically about AI and detect bias.
“You try to model the right behavior. That’s where it starts,” Weitl said
For Weitl, AI can also serve as a reminder of why writing itself is important. Rather than viewing AI only as a way to produce a finished assignment, he sees it as a tool that can help students think more intentionally about the writing process.
“AI reminds us what the point of writing is,” Weitl said. “If the student is a good enough prompter… they are probably understanding what you need them to know about writing.”
In one assignment, students were required to build a bot that could write a paper for them. Instead of asking AI to complete an assignment, students had to teach the bot how to produce the type of writing they wanted. This process forced students to be intentional about what good writing looks like and what they expected from the final product.
“I love it as a tool. I love it as a way of teaching certain things that were always important in writing,” Weitl said,
As AI continues to become more common in education and the workforce, Doane’s new policy gives students and faculty a starting point for navigating its use. As AI continues to grow, the policy may change, but right now it establishes basic expectations for AI use in the classroom.
