Generative AI Guidelines for Classroom Use

With students having easy access to generative AI (GenAI) tools, BU faculty must proactively guide appropriate and ethical use in coursework. Without such guidance, students may use these tools for help with studying and on homework assignments in ways that unintentionally violate academic integrity standards. It is therefore important for faculty to review what constitutes allowable versus misuse of GenAI in their course.

AIDA Leadership offers the following recommendations:

  1. Clarify GenAI Expectations Early
    • Explore our AI usage sample syllabi and policies page, submitted by BU faculty.
    • State your policy on GenAI use explicitly in the course syllabus. This includes disclosing how the instructors (faculty and student teachers) will use GenAI for lecture preparation, presentations, grading, and other course related tasks.
    • Take time in the first week of class to explain your policy and its rationale.
    • Make clear distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable uses.
  1. Reinforce Student Responsibility
    Students should be made aware that:
    • They are responsible for verifying the accuracy of any AI-generated content.
    • Submitting GenAI-generated work as their own original work may constitute plagiarism.
    • Misuse of GenAI can lead to violations of the university’s academic conduct policies.
  1. Encourage Constructive Use
    When appropriate, faculty are encouraged to:
    • Design assignments that integrate GenAI in a way that enhances learning, such as using it for brainstorming, editing, or reflection exercises.
    • Emphasize learning goals over performance metrics, which can help reduce misuse.
    • Consider process-focused assignments and assessing intermediate milestones towards a final product (e.g., topics to be covered, drafts, revisions, reflections, peer reviews) that even when produced with help from GenAI, they reinforce a way of working towards a final product.
  1. Academic Misconduct and Detection Limits
    • Be very cautious with accusations of GenAI misuse—all detection tools are highly fallible, both with respect to false positives and false negatives, despite the marketing claims of companies that sell these products.
    • Apply enforcement policies uniformly to minimize bias.  And recognize that even a uniform policy cannot eliminate bias — those students who are digitally savvy are more likely to evade detection, and those who are less knowledgeable are more likely to end up in the dragnet.
    • Focus on teaching students how to ethically and thoughtfully engage with GenAI, rather than only punishing misuse.
  1. Support and Resources
    • Consider issues of equity, access, and security when promoting GenAI usage in your courses. If at all possible, create assignments on the TerrierGPT platform, to which all BU students and faculty have free access.  This has the additional benefit of providing a high level of data security, up through confidential data.   (Note that it is not approved for use with restricted use data).

    For policies on GenAI use in broader academic and research contexts, please refer to: Generative AI Guidelines for Faculty & Staff.

    We invite your feedback. Please reach out with your input and insights.

    Last revised: February 2026