College of Business AI Policy

Written April 2023

In the College of Business, we embrace change and welcome opportunities to evolve our practices so that we remain on the cutting edge of commerce, work, and their impact on society. We are always looking for ways to better serve our students and ensure their success in their future careers.

We see the growth of artificial intelligence (AI), and AI generative tools as an exciting part of this future. We envision a world for our students in which AI tools can perform routine, time consuming tasks, leaving people to do the real work of humanity -- creating thinking and problem solving; applying ethics in a complex, globally interconnected world; and building relationships and teams across cultures and disciplines.

In our classrooms, this means acknowledging and, where appropriate, welcoming AI tools into our course materials and curricula. It also means thinking hard about how we preserve our human strengths and unique critical thinking skills. While we welcome AI, we also know that we need to continue to strengthen our human muscles, ensuring that both have a place in our common toolkit. We also know that there is a risk that if we don't design for AI, we may be overwhelmed by it.

For our faculty, that means we recommend the following:

Learn how AI tools are and will be used in your field and in your classroom. You cannot ignore the way AI will change the way your students interact with your assignments and course materials.
Think about how your students will use AI to complete assignments. Make no mistake, they will use the technology that is available to them, more so if they perceive that the assignments only exercise the type of rote thinking that the future workplace will likely assign to a machine. Ensure that you are building human skills into your assignments to make them more meaningful to your students, and to illustrate to them the limitations of AI.
Clarify how and when AI tools are permitted for use in your assignments, quizzes, exams, and projects. You may also ask students to describe the way they used AI tools in their assignments. Set clear expectations and lay those out in your assignment descriptions and in your syllabi.
Do not try to entirely eliminate or bar the use of AI. This is not only futile but also ignores the reality that your students will be using AI in their future careers. At the same time, consider when and how students have the opportunity to flex their "human muscles" without the aid of AI. Consider creating assignments or spaces where students build community, learn team-building skills, innovate, and create without the help of AI. Then layer in AI and see how it can be used as an assistant to, rather than a replacement for, the human mind.
Focus on the value that humans provide that AI cannot; ethics, creative thinking, problem solving, and human relationships rather than memorization of "covering" content. Assuming that AI will be a part of their work life, consider what specialized knowledge or content they need to ask the right questions, and supplement, challenge, correct, or assess AI-generated answers.
Teach the limitations of AI, including the fact that AI will make up false facts, studies, and research, and is also subject to embedded social biases. Students need strategies to assess the veracity of AI-generated text, and challenge the biases that live in the databases from which it draws its generative capabilities.

For our students, we recommend the following:

If you turn in an assignment with your name attached to it, know that you are claiming that you generated that work product. If in fact it was generated by another human or a machine, and you do not include proper attribution to them, understand that this is a violation of Oregon State University's Code of Student Conduct.
Always check our instructor's syllabus and assignments for specific instructions regarding the use of AI. If there are none, assume that you may only use these tools if you disclose that you have used them, and always follow up with your instructor if you have questions. If you import text directly from an AI tool, put that text in quotation marks and note what tool generated that text, just like you would attribute a direct quotation for a person. (Library How To.)
Understand that AI is not perfect, and that even the most advanced systems available today regularly make up scores and data, draw inaccurate or incorrect assumptions, and are built on a database that is embedded with the same biases as our society. Question the answers AI gives you; follow up with your own research: use scholarly and peer-reviewed sources to verify information you are given.
Consider the value that you are providing to the assignments that you complete. You may want to use an AI text assessment tool like ZeroGPT to assess the percentage of text that you are submitting that was generated by AI. While AI-text assessment tools are not perfect, they may help you visualize the extent to which you are truly engaging with your course materials, and the extent to which the machine is doing the work for you. NOTE: before you use this tool, or any other AI tool, consider (5) below, and avoid entering or providing access to any personally identifiable information.
Consider privacy concerns and your personal boundaries when using AI tools. Never use a tool without understanding what the owner of that tool may be doing with your data and personal information. Keep in mind that OSU does not have control over these tools and cannot assure you that they will be used with integrity or transparency. We cannot assure you that they will maintain your privacy or protect your data. Act accordingly!

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