Low Risk

• Using AI to translate class materials into another language for students: Yes, you can use AI to translate class materials into another language for students. There are many AI translation tools available online to help you with this task. Here is a translator from Microsoft. If possible, periodically check with fluent speakers to see if these translations are accurate.
   
• Using AI to create vocabulary lists: You can create personalized vocabulary lists for students of different reading levels and interests. Visit the site AI for Education for an example prompt to do this task. 
   
• Using AI to generate scenarios for students: You can use generative AI platforms to create scenarios for students to practice their writing, reading comprehension, critical thinking, or problem-solving skills.

Medium Risk

• Using AI to create simulations for students to experience other times and places in history: While UC Santa Cruz historian Benjamin Breen has successfully created simulations for his students in the ancient cities of Ur and Pompeii, the students “know from the outset that what they are getting is a perspective on the past, filled with distortions. … The reason it works as a teaching tool, rather than simply as a form of entertainment, is that large language models are surprisingly good at generating plausible historical settings and characters on the basis of short snippets from primary source texts.” If you use AI generated simulations with students, be sure to explain that the accuracy of AI output should always be fact-checked with other sources.
   
• Using AI to generate practice quizzes: In general, generative AI can quickly create questions, including distractors and feedback to students on many topics and levels, however each question will need to be checked for accuracy.
   
• Using AI for content creation (e.g., draft presentations and teaching materials): AI can be a useful tool in generating content. However, it is important to verify, fact check, asses for bias, any material generated or revised using AI. Material should not be used if it has not been reviewed by a human.

Low Risk

If there are no external constraints (i.e., the writing is not for an assignment where it is forbidden), generative AI platforms are good at quickly giving writers feedback. The more instructions given to the AI on what kind of feedback is necessary, the better the output will be.

Medium Risk

AI feedback is not the same as teacher feedback, but it can be fast and helpful. Do not upload student’s content to AI platforms without their consent. Keep a “human in the loop” to review the accuracy of the AI feedback prior to publishing it to students. Also, consider having your students use generative AI tools themselves to create feedback to improve their work and make it better using the prompts shared by Ethan and Lilach Mollick in this article.

You may need to discuss using AI tools in a variety of contexts, including learning materials and campus, collegiate, and course policies related to academic integrity. Consult with your collegiate leadership about specific policies. In any case, providing transparent information about expectations for student use of AI tools and how these expectations align with course goals and scholarly values is crucial.

Remember that with any policy in your syllabus, it’s important to have ongoing conversations throughout the semester.  Some example language:

• When AI is prohibited. [This course] assumes that work submitted by students—all process work, drafts, low-stakes writing, final versions, and all other submissions—will be generated by the students themselves, working individually or in groups. This means that the following would be considered violations of academic integrity: a student has another person/entity do the writing of any substantive portion of an assignment for them, which includes hiring a person or a company to write essays and drafts and/or other assignments, research-based or otherwise, and using artificial intelligence affordances like ChatGPT. (Excerpted from ChatGPT by University of California: Irvine Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation)
• When AI is allowed with attribution. In all academic work, the ideas and contributions of others must be appropriately acknowledged and work that is presented as original must be, in fact, original. Using an AI-content generator (such as ChatGPT) to complete coursework without proper attribution or authorization is a form of academic dishonesty. If you are unsure about whether something may be plagiarism or academic dishonesty, please contact your instructor to discuss the issue. Faculty, students, and administrative staff all share the responsibility of ensuring the honesty and fairness of the intellectual environment. (Excerpted from Constructing a Syllabus: A Checklist by Washington University in St. Louis Center for Teaching and Learning)
• When AI is allowed with attribution. Use of AI tools, including ChatGPT, is permitted in this course for students who wish to use them. To be consistent with our scholarly values, students must cite any AI-generated material that informed their work and use quotation marks or other appropriate indicators of quoted material when appropriate. Students should indicate how AI tools informed their process and the final product, including how you validated any AI-generated citations, which may be invented by the AI. Assignment guidelines will provide additional guidance as to how these tools might be part of your process for each assessment this semester and how to provide transparency about their use in your work.
•  When AI use is encouraged with certain tasks. Students are invited to use AI platforms to help prepare for assignments and projects (e.g., to help with brainstorming or to see what a completed essay might look like). I also welcome you to use AI tools to help revise and edit your work (e.g., to help identify flaws in reasoning, spot confusing or underdeveloped paragraphs, or to simply fix citations). When submitting work, students must clearly identify any writing, text, or media generated by AI. This can be done in a variety of ways. In this course, parts of essays generated by AI should appear in a different colored font, and the relationship between those sections and student contributions should be discussed in cover letters that accompany the essay submission. (Based on Course Policies related to ChatGPT and other AI Tools by Joel Gladd)

In addition to AI use in assignments, you may want to be clear in your syllabus about your policies regarding AI and exams. See the “What do I need to know about AI glasses and other wearable 'smart' devices” section of this page.

For more, Ryan Watkins, professor of Educational Technology Leadership, and Human-Technology Collaboration at George Washington University, offers suggestions to update your course syllabus and assignments. For more ideas about communicating with students about generative AI in your syllabus and beyond, contact the Center for Teaching.

Instructors should refrain from using AI detectors on student work due to the inherent inaccuracies in these tools.

AI detectors can produce false positives, unfairly penalizing students who have not engaged in any academic misconduct. Moreover, using AI detectors shifts pedagogical focus to policing, undermining the trust between students and educators, and offers only a short-term solution as AI technology is rapidly evolving.

Instead, educators should focus on fostering open dialogue, providing clear guidelines and a variety of assessment methods to ensure academic integrity and support authentic student learning. As alternatives to AI detectors:

• Create assignments that motivate students and help them understand how their work supports their learning. Incorporate course materials and require direct quotations from these materials to be included in students’ written answers.
• Use multi-stage assignments with drafts and revisions.
• Consider non-written formats like presentations or multimedia projects.
• Design assignments with components that ask students to use their own voice and personal experiences.
• Ask students metacognitive follow-up questions about their assignments to encourage reflection on their thought processes and confirm the authenticity of their work.

The Center for Teaching has resources available for instructors wishing to promote academic integrity or redesign assignments for future students.

Learn more about the limitations of AI detection tools:

Abdali, S., Anarfi, R., Barberan, C. J., & He, J. (2024). Decoding the AI Pen: Techniques and Challenges in Detecting AI-Generated Text. arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2403.05750

Sadasivan, V. S., Kumar, A., Balasubramanian, S., Wang, W., & Feizi, S. (2024)1. Can AI-Generated Text be Reliably Detected? arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.11156

Weber-Wulff, D., Anohina-Naumeca, A., Bjelobaba, S.et al. Testing of detection tools for AI-generated text. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 19, 1-39. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-023-00146-z

Students may have access to a variety of resources like calculators, Wikipedia, peers, hired tutors, and increasingly, AI tools to accomplish their course tasks and assignments. 

Instructors are encouraged to engage in discussions with their students about Iowa’s policy on Academic Misconduct. Students benefit from transparent instructions about which tools and resources they can appropriately leverage in their work (e.g., Winkelmes et. al, 2016). They will also need guidance on how to cite or acknowledge the tools and individuals who contributed to their work. Although a policy in a course syllabus is a good way to start these conversations, the syllabus shouldn’t be the only time the policy is discussed.

The Center for Teaching's Handbook for Teaching Excellence provides additional information on promoting academic integrity.

Another resource available is the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS). Read this information from the University of Iowa Center for Teaching on how to use the AIAS to make intentional course design choices and clearly communicate expectations around generative AI.

Some instructors may want to incorporate AI tools into their assignments so students develop the skills necessary to interact with it in the future. Depending on course goals, potential assignments could include:

• Developing a question that will effectively elicit an AI-generated response that meets certain specifications.
• Comparing and contrasting AI-generated text with other scholarly work.
• Evaluating AI-generated text for missing or inaccurate information.
• Using AI to generate examples or proofs of concept (Warner, 2022).

Like any technology tool, it is important to consider questions about student privacy, availability of technical troubleshooting, and accessibility prior to requiring use by students. Instructors can request consultations on the availability of alternative tools or alternative assignments for individual students who may not wish to use AI tools.

If you would like assistance with designing assessments for your own teaching context, contact the Center for Teaching.

Some instructors may be interested in preventing the student use of AI tools in their assessments. This may be a difficult task as Beth McMurtrie points out in a Chronicle of Higher Education’s Teaching Newsletter, “If you want to make your assignments AI proof, that’s impossible," (McMurtrie, 2023). Effective assessments are closely aligned to course goals and allow students to demonstrate their learning in authentic ways. Assignments focused on the specific learning of the course and students’ own learning are also less suited to being written by AI or by another person who is not participating in the course.

• Developing a specific prompt that requires students to leverage information learned in the course, including materials on ICON and in-class discussions.
• Scaffolding the assignment to include several stages, such as a proposal, an outline, a rough draft, and a final draft. Depending on other factors, such as course size, an instructor might be able to include opportunities for students to receive and comment on peer/instructor feedback at these stages.
• Including a metacognitive component in which students describe their research and writing process, what they learned from it, and how they would approach a similar task in the future.
• Focusing assessments on current events and recent scholarship not yet included in the AI training data set.
• Exploring how an AI responds to your assignment prompt. 

It is not recommended to simply replace existing high-stakes assignments with graded, hand-written, in-class assignments. This may have unintended consequences for students who use technology to provide accommodations and other legitimate assistance in completing coursework. (CRLT, 2022)

The Center for Teaching's Handbook for Teaching Excellence provides additional information on how to develop authentic assessments. If you would like assistance with designing assessments for your own teaching context, contact the Center for Teaching.

These programs are either web browsers or plugins for web browsers that bring generative AI into the same space a student is using to complete an assignment. They can read text displayed in a browser (this includes quiz questions from ICON, Top Hat, and other online platforms) and then suggest or automatically create or select an answer based on what the generative AI believes is the correct answer.

Here are the strategies you can use to adapt your teaching:

1. Include a statement about the use of these tools in your syllabi and assignments.
2. Consider alternative ways to assess students' learning that require them to complete tasks outside of or in addition to tasks in ICON, such as oral presentations, visual or multimodal projects, case studies, and journals.
3. Consider incorporating the use of alternative assessments, higher order questions, and flipped classroom approaches in your teaching.
4. Use a locked browser with any online quizzes or exams to prevent the use of other applications while testing.
   • All University of Iowa courses have access to Respondus Lockdown Browser.
   • Select courses have access to Honorlock.
5. Use Gradescope to assess paper-based quizzes and tests in a way that helps save time and gives students consistent feedback at scale.

ITS is monitoring developments in this space, escalating the AI browser topic with the instructional technology vendors we work with, adding a message to instructors in ICON’s quiz page, and blocking the installation of known plugins on university-managed machines that are located in Instructional Technology Centers and testing centers.

Smart glasses offer functions comparable to those of smartphones, but with the appearance of typical glasses. They feature internet connectivity, integrated miniature cameras and speakers, and may use a lens-embedded display. Instructors who wish to prohibit smart glasses during assessments as part of standard proctoring practices should clearly communicate this prohibition to students in advance and also remind students immediately prior to the exam. It is important to note that because some students may have prescription smart glasses instructors should also add a statement like the following to their syllabus and/or assessment instructions at the beginning of the semester, to allow students with these smart glasses to procure alternative glasses before assessments are scheduled:

AI Wearables, such as AI glasses and other “smart” devices are not permitted during quizzes and exams, unless explicitly approved in advance. Students with prescription smart glasses must be prepared to bring standard prescription glasses to quizzes and exams.

Adapted from PennState Academic Integrity Resources

Many faculty are now experimenting with the use of chatbots in their courses. To enable informed decisions about the uses and potential applications of chatbots in teaching and learning, visit ITS's chatbot guidance page.