SHSU Generative AI Guidance
Students
Faculty/Instructors
Staff
Generative AI Guidance for SHSU Students
This guide is designed to help SHSU students understand and responsibly use generative AI tools in academic contexts. Below, you’ll find key information, resources, and SHSU-specific guidelines.
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What is AI?
AI refers to tools and systems that mimic human intelligence, such as understanding language, solving problems, and creating content.
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AI Resources
Discover tools and tips to use AI effectively and responsibly in your studies.
Overview:
- AI Tools for Students: Generative AI can help brainstorm ideas, summarize readings, and draft outlines. Use it as a tool to enhance—not replace—your learning.
- Use Responsibly: Always verify AI-generated content for accuracy and originality. And make sure to check with your instructor before using AI in relation to any classwork or assignments.
- How to Get Started: Look into free tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, or Grammarly’s AI writing assistant. SHSU has access to Microsoft’s Copilot through Microsoft 365.
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AI at SHSU
Learn how AI fits into your education and what guidelines to follow at SHSU.
Overview:
- Ask Your Instructor or supervisor: Some classes and offices may have concerns about the use of AI. It is up to each instructor to specify an AI policy for that particular class.
- SHSU Academic Honesty Policy: Using AI to complete work without permission may violate the university’s Academic Honesty Policy. Always check with your instructor or supervisor before you use it.
- Citing AI: When using AI tools, treat them like any other source and give proper credit.
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AI Ethics
Understand the ethical considerations of using AI in your studies and beyond.
Overview:
- Environmental Impact: Training AI tools uses significant energy, raising concerns about sustainability.
- Hallucinations: AI tools can produce incorrect or misleading information. Always fact-check the outputs.
- Bias in AI: AI models may reflect biases in their training data, so use critical thinking when analyzing their results.
- Privacy Concerns: Avoid sharing sensitive or personal information with AI tools, as their data privacy policies may not fully protect your input.
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Generative AI Guidance for SHSU Faculty & Instructors
The SHSU Generative AI Guidance page is designed to become a living document for the support of SHSU faculty, staff, and students. As such, we hope to see it become a lively, crowdsourced collection, inviting the contributions of stakeholders in a growing body of shared knowledge and best practices for AI in higher education settings. There will be no defining university policy on AI. Rather, we will work together to integrate AI practice into existing and proposed policies such as Academic Honesty and Course Structure and Management. The university has an emergent mandate from the state: integrate AI into classroom learning and student research projects to help prepare students for workforce readiness. At the same time, we remain true to our foundational commitment to guiding students through their intellectual development and acquisition of personal academic skills. The purpose of this page is to provide resources for SHSU faculty, staff, and students seeking to create that balance.
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Syllabus statement examples
The following links offer examples of syllabus statements that cover different types of AI policies, ranging from a complete ban on AI tools to requiring the use of AI tools for completing specific activities or assignments. Many of them also mention the rationale for the policy being followed.
- https://www.brandeis.edu/teaching/resources/syllabus/ai-statements.html
- https://ctl.utexas.edu/chatgpt-and-generative-ai-tools-sample-syllabus-policy-statements
- https://provost.tufts.edu/celt/online-resources/artificial-intelligence/ai-syllabus-statements/
- https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/teaching-guides/artificial-intelligence-teaching-guide/creating-your-course-policy-ai
- https://teaching.temple.edu/sites/teaching/files/resource/pdf/Chat-GPT%20syllabus%20statement%20guidance.pdf
- https://www.chapman.edu/ai/chapman-considerations-for-syllabus-policy-on-the-use-of-ai-generative-tools.aspx
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Resource pages from other universities
Here are some helpful AI resource pages from other universities that cover everything from overviews about generative AI to ethical considerations to resources for classroom and research applications of various tools:
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Academic Integrity and Artificial Intelligence
Like any tool, AI may be used for good or ill, so the simple use of generative AI is not necessarily an academic integrity problem. However, a student’s undisclosed use of generative AI in assignments outside the boundaries that an instructor has set for a specific course may constitute a violation of SHSU’s Academic Honesty policy. Instructors should make sure that students are informed of course expectations regarding how AI may or may not be used and whether its use should be cited/documented in assignments.
Although many tools claim to “detect” the use of generative AI, these detection tools are recognized as deeply flawed, as they report both false positives and false negatives a significant amount of the time. Instructors should be cautious in relying on an AI detection tool to take any negative actions regarding student work, especially since a student would have difficulty providing conclusive evidence that they did not use AI. The references below provide more insight into the problems with AI detectors.
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Introductory Resources to Share with Students
One way to help students make better choices about the use of generative AI is to educate them about the basics of how it actually works, what it does well or poorly, and the real or potential concerns with its use. Below are a few resources that instructors might add to a course to help students build a foundation of AI literacy.
Generative AI Guidance for SHSU Staff
This guide is designed to help SHSU staff understand and responsibly use generative AI tools in academic and professional contexts. AI tools can make us more productive and streamline a variety of personal and professional tasks. Below, you’ll find key information, resources, and SHSU-specific guidelines.
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What is AI?
AI refers to tools and systems that mimic human intelligence, such as understanding language, solving problems, and creating content.
Helpful Links: -
AI Ethics
Understand the ethical considerations of using AI in your work and beyond.
Overview:
- Environmental Impact: Training AI tools uses significant energy, raising concerns about sustainability.
- Hallucinations: AI tools can produce incorrect or misleading information. Always fact-check the outputs.
- Bias in AI: AI models may reflect biases in their training data, so use critical thinking when analyzing their results.
- Privacy Concerns: Avoid sharing sensitive or personal information with AI tools, as their data privacy policies may not fully protect your input.
Helpful Links: -
Prompt Generation
Great AI results start with your input. When writing an AI prompt, focus on persona, task, context and format.
Overview:
- Persona refers to the information you provide about the voice the response should be in. From an educator to high school students.
- Task refers to what you are asking the AI to do. Are you asking for an email or a formal letter?
- Context refers to how you want the AI to perform a task. What tone do you want? Format refers to the type of output you want. Do you want an email or a blog post?
Helpful Links: -
AI Resources
Discover tools and tips to use AI effectively and responsibly in your work.
Overview:
- AI Tools for Staff: Generative AI can help brainstorm ideas, summarize readings, draft outlines, sort data, and more.
- Use Responsibly:Always verify AI-generated content for accuracy and originality. Make sure to check with your supervisor before using an AI tool. There are some tasks for which AI may not be appropriate, ethical, or even legal.
- How to Get Started:Look into free tools like ChatGPT, DALL-E, or Grammarly’s AI writing assistant. Also explore the tools available through the Microsoft suite of products.
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