Policy on Generative AI
Introduction – No use of generative AI (GAI) is permitted in this course. The use of GAI is considered a breach of academic honesty with the same penalties as plagiarism.
Rationale – Engaging with this course is primarily about your intellectual, emotional, and creative growth. Work generated by AI does not reflect your growth, nor does it prepare you for the critical thinking and communication skills required in the working world or as an engaged community member.
Your job as a student is to engage with course materials, develop your critical thinking skills, create games from your own imagination, personally reflect on the content from your unique perspective, and articulate your own thoughts through writing and presentation skills, cite credible scholarly sources where appropriate.
My job is to assess how well you have performed these tasks. I am interested and enthusiastic about hearing your unique perspective, not the “right answer.” The answers GAI provides are often highly inaccurate and shallow. Furthermore, they can contain ethically problematic statements that run counter to meeting our learning objectives and cultivating a supportive atmosphere in the classroom.
- Penalties – Using generative AI in any assignment may result in a failing grade and/or report to the university for academic dishonesty. Issues with grammar and structure are unlikely to lead to a failing grade on an assignment, but the use of GAI likely will. This is not an English course; do not worry too much about grammar or writing a “perfect” paper.
- Prohibited –
- Students are not permitted to submit assignments created using generative AI for their written work or presentations.
- Students can use the built in grammar/spelling checkers in web browsers, Google Docs, or Microsoft Word. However, students may not use built-in AI tools such as Google Gemini or Microsoft Co-pilot, nor may they use any other AI tool to generate text or alter spelling/grammar. Grammarly is no longer a permitted resource for this reason.
- Students may not use generative AI for research. GAI is not considered a credible source, as it often “hallucinates” falsehoods as truth, does not cite where it finds them, or invents citations that do not exist. Instead, students must consult original sources and cite them, such as sources from Google Scholar and the Uppsala Library.
- Note that you will likely not need to include any external sources outside of the ones cited for you and included in the Overviews for each Unit. You may use those citations, as well as links to the sources we cite, e.g., (Montola 2010, in Diakolambrianou et al. 2024).