The UCA administration recently approved a contract with Google which will allow students to have access to the AI program Gemini.
“Tools like Gemini Pro are intended to enhance the learning process and support productivity,” administration said. “Students are encouraged to balance the platform’s capabilities while maintaining academic integrity.”
Though ultimately with this new AI integration comes the question of academic integrity.
UCA administration said the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Academic Leadership currently has a group working to explore and make recommendations for the Academic Integrity policy in the age of generative AI.
The leader of this group, Dr. Amy Hawkins, said UCA faculty is going to have to be “transparent with students about how they can use AI.”
Hawkins said CETAL provides faculty training courses in AI and its rapid growth in the academic field.
“What we say is tell them to what degree AI can be used in a particular course and in a particular assignment,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins said the training also provides ways for faculty to create healthy AI environments in the classroom.
“The way you get students to use AI ethically is to build relationships — it’s the same thing [educators have] always done,” Hawkins said. “If students trust you, then they won’t use [AI] when it’s going to keep them from learning.”
Ultimately though, Hawkins said the responsibility is on faculty to understand how to use AI better than students. And CETAL’s training provides an opportunity for faculty to gain a better understanding of how AI is used in academics.
The CETAL team has used the AI policies of several different colleges across the country as a reference for UCA’s own policy.
“We really think highly of Stanford and what they’ve done with teaching with AI,” Hawkins said. “[We use] major universities with more resources to invest in it – so then we don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
Hawkins said the team is also using Auburn University’s AI policies as a reference.
Going forward, Hawkins said AI usage is only going to “grow and accelerate” among UCA students.
“It’s only going to become more and more common in [student’s] learning, also it’s going to be in every profession,” Hawkins said.
AI usage will increase in part due to UCA switching over to the Brightspace learning management system.
Hawkins said Brightspace will be able to organize content into quizzes students can take to gain a better understanding of the course.
“AI makes a great thought partner,” Hawkins said. “Use it for grammar and style. But use your very good brain – it knows a lot of things.”
Hawkins said strategies to balance AI usage and academic integrity include having students put AI disclosures at the end of assignments.
“They’re supposed to tell me this is how I used AI. This is the AI tool I used and these are the prompts I gave it,” Hawkins said.
AI will have its implementations in every field, Hawkins said, whether it be physics, biology or public relations.
Hawkins said being upfront with AI is the best approach for instructors to be upfront of how AI will be used in a particular course.
“Eventually we will get to the point where we can go, ‘This part of AI use is done in class and this other part of AI use is done in class,’” Hawkins said. “This is as big of a change in work and living as the internet. And so while you can waste time arguing over whether we should use it or not use it. We have it. And so now we have to grapple with what to do with it.”
