McMaster releases AI guidelines for students, staff

McMaster University is embracing the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and is exploring the potential it has in the classroom.

As AI tools like Chat GPT continue to grow in popularity, McMaster has released guidelines for students and staff to follow including how to cite their work and examples of rubrics to assess the use of AI in an educational setting.

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Erin Aspenlieder with the university’s task force says the goal of the guidelines is to allow instructors to understand AI and how it could be integrated into their teaching.

She said, “The entire task force made up of staff, students and faculty are really thinking about, ‘how can we take the best of these tools, being aware of the risks and concerns, mitigating those where we can and ensuring our collective effort is really around enhancing the student learning experience.'”

It will be up to the instructor whether or not they will use AI but if they do, Aspenlieder says it should clearly be communicated to students.

The guidelines released this month include how to cite AI work and sample rubrics developed by Chat GPT to show an example of what the tool is capable of.

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McMaster students say they welcome the use of AI in the classrooms but are weary about the possibility of academic integrity.

As of right now, AI plagiarism detection software is unavailable or not recommended at the school due to issues with false positives and security and privacy concerns but is something that is being reviewed for the future.

Since this technology is evolving, the task force says the guidance will continue to be updated over the summer based on feedback and any other changes with the technology to prepare for the fall semester.

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