Artificial intelligence is a rapidly evolving field, and there are now multiple programs (e.g., ChatGPT and Bard) that can interact with users via “natural” conversations and rapidly generate output, including art, essays, and computer code. Programs such as these will continue to evolve and be utilized in professional settings, and you can and should become familiar with them in the course of your undergraduate studies. At the same time, in-demand employees are those who have skills (to not use an AI when doing so would expose proprietary information to the creator of the AI, to debug AI-generated code when it doesn’t get it quite right, to modify output from AI for subtly different use cases, to perform tasks independent of AI when appropriate…) and the clarity of thought and ability to communicate effectively and effortlessly. Your college education is a time to develop these abilities and using AI as a crutch can hinder that process.
That said, usage of AI tools is explicitly allowed in this course. However, usage of AI tools, for purposes of assisting research, generative text, writing code, etc. MUST be accompanied by an experience report, which is an explanation of the following things:
What tool did you use?
For what portions of your assignment did you use the tool?
What was your experience using the tool? Was it easy or hard to get the results you desired?
How useful did you find the tool?
Did the AI tool help you understand the material or present it in a way that you found more useful?
Do you think using the AI tool enhanced or inhibited your learning process?
The experience report is required even if you do not use any output from the AI tool. Using AI tools without reporting their use in the form of an experience report is considered a breach of academic honesty.
The experience reports (in whole or in part) may be discussed in class, but the professor will anonymize and summarize them beforehand.
Please note that neither reporting the use of AI nor the exact answers to the questions of the experience report (as long as they’re truthful) will adversely affect your grade in any way. Neither the use of AI tools nor their abstinence will put you at a technical advantage or disadvantage regarding how assignments are graded. However, you are still responsible for the information presented in this class, and there will be some points (like in-class quizzes and discussions) where AI tools will not be readily available. Furthermore, if you submit work with AI assistance that happens to be incorrect, it will be graded as-is and marked accordingly.
Please remember that this policy does not necessarily reflect the policies and outlook of other Mount Union professors and is currently only applicable to CSC 480. Please continue to respect differing AI policies at this university.