Message regarding Artificial Intelligence/ChatGPT in the classroom

January 16, 2023

Dear Faculty Colleagues:

Over the last six weeks, it would be difficult to read the news or turn on the radio without hearing a story about artificial intelligence (AI) and the ChatGPT platform. AI technology is not new, but easily accessible public-facing platforms like ChatGPT are a potential gamechanger for the way we design, deliver, and assess learning outcomes.

As you finalize your spring semester syllabi, please consider how you may want to redesign course assignments and include clearly worded guidance about the use of AI tools for your classes. You may decide to strictly prohibit the use of AI or you may choose to build assignments around it. You may even decide to use AI yourself. However you decide to engage (or not) with AI, please make your intentions clear to your students.

Here is one possible such statement if you choose to forbid the use of AI:

“The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is strictly prohibited in all coursework and assignments. This includes, but is not limited to, the use of AI-generated text, speech, or images, as well as the use of AI tools or software to complete any portion of a project or assignment. Any violations of this policy will result in disciplinary action, up to and including a failing grade for the assignment or course. Our goal is to encourage critical thinking and creativity, and the use of AI detracts from this objective. Students are expected to use their own knowledge, research and analysis to complete coursework.”

If you are not yet familiar with ChatGPT or its capabilities, you are now: this policy statement was generated by the ChatGPT AI engine based on the prompt “write a syllabus policy statement forbidding the use of AI.”

AI is a tool, one that can be used to spark human creativity (or circumvent the requirements of a homework assignment). This video from a professor at UNC Wilmington provides some ideas about how to use ChatGPT (or any other AI) as a tool for creativity

From an academic integrity standpoint, there is some promising news. There is software either available or in development that can detect AI generated language. OpenAI, the producer of ChatGPT also provides an AI detector, available here — but it is certainly fallible: when I entered the AI-generated policy statement it received a 99.89% “real” score but longer examples of AI-generated text are easily detectable. TurnItIn, which many of you already use to detect plagiarism, will have an AI detector available very soon.

Over the spring semester, there will be several opportunities to discuss AI and its impact on higher education. It is on the agenda for the next department chairs meeting in February; the keynote speaker for the March 24 Faculty Research Symposium is AI researcher Vasant Dhar, and we will be scheduling a faculty forum on the topic for some time in April.

Associate Dean of Students Annie Virkus-Estrada investigated 10 cases of AI-based violations of academic integrity policies in Fall 2022. That number will likely increase exponentially as we and our students explore both the limits to and possibilities for the integration of AI in academic work. Please consider how you want to address AI in your classroom and make those intentions clear to your students.

Thank you for all that you do to uphold the high academic standards for which Baruch College is well known. Publicly accessible AI will change the way we do that, much as the internet did thirty years ago, but we can approach this “brave new world” with clarity and thoughtfulness.

With warm regards,

Dr. Linda Essig
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs