Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)
GenAI is a relatively new tool, and we are all trying to learn the best way to use it to help the process of learning, understanding, and communicating information accurately and appropriately. It can be really useful for providing a perspective on a new field and showing us context, content, and directions.
In this course, we do not consider using GenAI cheating per se. If students use it to help them be grounded in a new field of inquiry or research, or to explore ideas for class projects, then it is just like any other tool for research and writing. However, like any other tool that students can use legitimately, materials accessed through a GenAI program need to be identified, documented, and verified.
In this course, proper use of GenAI for assignments will require that students (1) acknowledge the use of GenAI in the project; (2) identify the specific source of the GenAI used (for example, ChatGPT, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, GitHub Copilot, and so on); (3) carefully check and verify facts and conclusions presented by the AI generator; (4) verify whether the information retrieved is a mainstream idea within a discipline, on the fringe, or somewhere in between; (5) and point out the relevance and appropriateness of the information in the context of the main theme or thesis of the work to which the GenAI contributes.
If you have questions or need help with any of these aspects of GenAI use in this course, you should contact your instructor as soon as possible.