Academic Honesty & AI Use for Academic Coursework

Academic Honesty

Academic Honesty is an important foundation of a teaching and learning community and taken very seriously by Worcester State University. For the full statement of the Academic Honesty Policy, please go to LINK.

Among other elements, this policy includes definitions of relevant terms such as “plagiarism” and student appeal procedures. Please note that there are three main ways that academic dishonesty is dealt with at Worcester State.

First, instructors may impose sanctions within a course, which might include such things as mandatory rewrites or reduced or failing grades.

Second, in conjunction with what they do in class, instructors may file reports of academic dishonesty instances in the Academic Central File.

Third, a faculty member, administrator, or student can initiate formal process through the Academic Judicial Board.

Such reports form a record of conduct that is tracked at the university level, and allows both instructors and the Worcester State administration to determine if a student has been reported for multiple violations.  While having a report filed in the Academic Central File about one’s academic dishonesty does not in itself carry any penalty for the student, reports in the file can be used for evidence in formal judicial processes.  In addition, faculty members can request to be told if a student has a prior report on file and the Worcester State administration can institute formal judicial processes based on Academic Central File reports.

IMPORTANT:  Submission without correct citation of any material prepared with help from an artificial intelligence tool, such as ChatGPT, is plagiarism, unless and only if you are instructed otherwise by your course instructor.  (NOTE:  Such an exception applies ONLY to the course in which that instructor has made the exception, no other courses.)

Artificial Intelligence Use for Academic Coursework

The rapid development and refinement of generative AI tools have already had a powerful influence on teaching and learning in academic settings. 

These tools come with biases and constraints that students and faculty must consider in an academic environment:

• Ethical use of the tools;
• Credibility and accuracy of AI chatbot results;
• Privacy concerns;
• Intellectual property violations;
• The inequities that they perpetuate;
• The long-range economic and environmental consequences associated with their use;
• Academic integrity; and
• The influence these tools may have on how we learn, communicate, solve problems, and generate knowledge. 

There are so many complex and pressing questions around AI, and many are still determining the uses and limits of AI in various contexts. Therefore, students will find that professors create distinct course-specific policies around AI use and academic integrity where AI is concerned. 

Some faculty will welcome, encourage, or require AI use in their courses. Others will prohibit AI use. It is your responsibility to read course syllabi and course policies and seek out that information on each of your courses. If you have questions about AI policies in any course, reach out directly to your professor for guidance.