The below guidelines for Liberal Arts outline Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage in the classroom for the 2024/2025 academic year. These guidelines were developed by Dr James Garvey in consultation with colleagues in the Liberal Arts Department and should be followed in tandem with the CCS Institutional AI Statement. If faculty or students have questions about the implementation of these guidelines in the classroom, they should contact Dr. Garvey at jgarvey@collegeforcreativestudies.edu.
AI is being utilized to generate text. Based on that usage, concerns are being brought forward related to academic integrity and written assignments. It is assumed that in the next five years, AI systems will impact the humanities further and the guidelines offered below allow for applicable student preparation.
- Traditional skill development will continue to be the focus for Liberal Arts.
- AI systems may be used in the classroom at the 200 level or above, with proper citation, but not in first year composition courses.
- Should a faculty wish to include AI system consideration and usage into other courses not listed, they must receive permission from the Chair, Dr Garvey.
- AI use within the curriculum will abide by the guidelines offered in the CCS Institutional AI Statement.
- Should a faculty member wish to offer an exception to the guidelines, that must be stated in writing and approved by the Chair, Dr Garvey.
- Pedagogical methodologies in all courses within liberal arts will place greater emphasis on active learning and process work to ensure students can evidence their efforts within assigned projects.
The CCS Academic Integrity Policy has been revised to include AI-related concerns.
As AI technology is evolving, these, and the institution’s, guidelines will change as context requires.
Liberal Arts Artificial Intelligence Policy
In your liberal arts classes, every word you submit for assignments must be written by you, or if you are using the words or ideas of others, properly cited by you. This includes words and ideas generated by artificial intelligence.
To be clear you can use AI for help before you begin writing, in the pre-drafting process, as you might use any research source. You could talk with it to brainstorm ideas, come up with lines of enquiry, get perspectives on a topic, find pointers towards fruitful areas of research, and so on. If you do use AI in this way you must follow MLA AI citation rules, which can be found here, just as you would when paraphrasing, quoting or otherwise incorporating any ideas that are not your own in your writing.
However, you cannot use AI when it comes to writing words you will submit for an assignment. You cannot use AI to edit or revise your text, for example by putting your words into a prompt and asking AI to alter the style, form, or voice, clean up the grammar, or make similar, global revisions, and then submit this as your work. If you prefer to write in a language that is not English and use AI translators to convert your text into English, you must cite this use. As you’re learning fundamental writing skills in DEN 101 and 102, the use of AI is forbidden at any stage in these courses, including translators. However, you can use spell checking and grammar checking tools like Grammarly in all your liberal arts classes.
Faculty may give specific guidance about the use of AI in particular assignments, and you should follow these instructions carefully. All submitted work is screened by AI detection and plagiarism tools.
AI changes, and your default assumption should be, don’t use AI unless you know how to cite it. If you are in any doubt, speak to your instructor for guidance. We are all finding our way in this and should expect to discuss surprises and find solutions together.