Faculty should include a syllabus statement which directs students with disabilities in need of accommodations to the Accessibility Services. The sample statement below can be copied and pasted into the syllabus:

At Utah Valley University, faculty and students operate in an atmosphere of mutual trust. Maintaining an atmosphere of academic integrity allows for free exchange of ideas and enables all members of the community to achieve their highest potential. Our goal is to foster an intellectual atmosphere that produces scholars of integrity and imaginative thought. In all academic work, the ideas and contributions of others must be appropriately acknowledged and UVU students are expected to produce their own original academic work. 

Faculty and students share the responsibility of ensuring the honesty and fairness of the intellectual environment at UVU. Students have a responsibility to promote academic integrity at the university by not participating in or facilitating others' participation in any act of academic dishonesty. As members of the academic community, students must become familiar with their rights and responsibilities. In each course, they are responsible for knowing the requirements and restrictions regarding research and writing, assessments, collaborative work, the use of study aids, the appropriateness of assistance, and other issues. Likewise, instructors are responsible to clearly state expectations and model best practices. 

Further information on what constitutes academic dishonesty is detailed inUVU Policy 541: Student Code of Conduct.

Definitions and Examples:

We would like to acknowledge the following institutions: Northeastern University, University of Jamestown, Washington University in St. Louis, and UVU's Woodbury School of Business. This statement uses or adapts parts of their academic integrity statements or used them for inspiration.

Utah Valley University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age (40 and over), disability, veteran status, pregnancy, childbirth, or pregnancy-related conditions, citizenship, genetic information, or other basis protected by applicable law, including Title IX and 34 C.F.R. Part 106, in employment, treatment, admission, access to educational programs and activities, or other University benefits or services. Inquiries about nondiscrimination at UVU may be directed to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights or UVU’s Title IX Coordinator at 801-863-7999 – [email protected] – 800 W University Pkwy, Orem, 84058, Suite BA 203.

Faculty Senate and UVU Academic Administration expect faculty to include a Generative AI statement within their course syllabi. Student support services will be directing students to look at their syllabi to discover their individual faculty’s acceptable use of generative AI. The following statements are listed as examples only. Faculty are encouraged to write their own statement to fit their course(s), and to share and discuss with their colleagues.

Version 1: From Hilary Hungerford

AI Syllabus Statement 

*adapted from Temple University statement on AI in classes.  

AI programs are not a replacement for your human creativity, originality, and critical thinking. Writing, thinking, and researching are crafts that you must develop over time to develop your own individual voice.  At the same time, you should learn how to use AI and in what instances AI can be helpful to you.  

The use of generative AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Google Bard, etc.) is permitted in this course for the following activities:

• Brainstorming and refining your ideas;
• Fine tuning your research questions;
• Finding information on your topic;
• Drafting an outline to organize your thoughts; and
• Checking grammar and style.

The use of generative AI tools is not permitted in this course for the following activities:

• Impersonating you in classroom contexts, such as by using the tool to compose discussion board prompts/responses assigned to you or content that you put into a Teams/Canvas chat.
• Completing group work that your group has assigned to you, unless it is mutually agreed upon that you may utilize the tool.
• Writing a draft of a writing assignment.
• Writing entire sentences, paragraphs or papers to complete class assignments.

You are responsible for the information you submit based on an AI query (for instance, that it does not violate intellectual property laws, or contain misinformation or unethical content). Your use of AI tools must be properly documented and cited in order to stay within university policies on academic honesty. 

Any student work submitted using AI tools should clearly indicate what work is the student’s work and what part is generated by the AI. In such cases, no more than 25% of the student work should be generated by AI. If any part of this is confusing or uncertain, please reach out to me for a conversation before submitting your work.

 

Version 2: From Dr. George Rudolph

ChatGPT (and similar Tools) in This Course

Use ChatGPT as a learning assistant, not as a crutch. If you use it, cite it at the top of your code. You are responsible to make sure that any code or content does what it is supposed to do and says what you want it to say. Don't accept anything it generates at face value without checking it critically. These days potential employers will expect you to know how to use tools like ChatGPT to generate code, so it is a skill we need to teach you. If it helps you learn some things faster, GREAT because we can spend class time on more interesting topics. Just remember: If you REALLY want to be good, work for it.

 

Version 3: From the English Dept

Plagiarism

As explained in UVU’s Student Rights and Accountabilities page, all students are expected “to maintain absolute integrity and high standards of individual honesty in academic work, and to observe a high standard of conduct for the academic environment.” Under such expectations, the UVU English department views plagiarism as a serious offense that does not align with the university’s mission and values. Our expectation is that every student’s work will be their own and use outside sources in a manner that consistently gives proper credit to those sources through established academic conventions.

Plagiarism has occurred if you:

• Use the exact wording of another author or source in such a manner that it appears to be your own, regardless of the form in which those words originally appeared (e.g., a book, article, lecture, web site, speech, graphic, or any other form such as an AI text generator)
• Paraphrase (put into your own words) another author’s wording in a manner where the language and/or syntax is too similar to the original passage and is not properly cited
• Fail to clearly acknowledge the partial or full authorship of someone else when submitting work
• Fail to cite or quote textual resources properly, despite the instructor's attempts at educational intervention
• Fabricate false information that is not corroborated by the actual research used on a writing project
• Have someone else, paid or otherwise, write your paper or use a paper mill site that contains ready-to-use papers written by other people
• Generate and submit a paper using artificial intelligence, such at ChatGPT

While the above actions can happen with intentionality to deceive, plagiarism can also happen accidentally (due to careless resource use, not using proper citation methods, and not understanding the conventions of our chosen style guide). Though intentional vs accidental is often a judgment call for an instructor, it’s important to note that accidental plagiarism is still plagiarism—a serious need to address the incident arises regardless. Though the resulting consequences may vary based on the degree of intentionality, any form of plagiarism will be addressed with equal seriousness.

The UVU English department is also keeping up with artificial intelligence chat bots such as ChatGPT. Believing the technology is here to stay, and will only grow, we feel it’s important to understand both its strengths and limitations. AI is already proving its usefulness in brainstorming writing ideas, simplifying complex topics, and performing rudimentary research. We believe AI is a tool with potential usefulness for writers. However, AI is also fraught with serious issues. It possesses accuracy problems while simultaneously sounding very confident about its incorrectness. It also frequently generates fake citations and quotations. It cannot understand the complexities and contexts of human communication. Finally, the way AI is trained on other texts poses several ethical questions about copyright and intellectual theft of property (along with uncritically inheriting the biases of the texts it's trained on).

To be clear, copying the exact wording of an AI chatbot is considered plagiarism and means that a student will be held accountable for violating academic integrity. Although many citation guides are already presenting ways to properly use and cite AI, we do not currently believe that citing AI in your work is in line with the standards of academic writing that value knowing the exact author(s) or sources that informed your writing. 

If you are suspected of plagiarism, the first step will always be a conversation with your instructor (in-person or via Teams). If the infraction is very minor or clearly unintentional, there may be no sanctions at all. However, a  lowered grade and/or the chance to revise the paper may also be possible. In more serious cases, the assignment may receive an automatic zero.

The most serious infractions may lead to your instructor filing an incident report with the Student Conduct office. In this scenario, you have the right to appeal the report with the English department chair. Regardless of the chair’s decision, the incident report remains a part of your permanent record. If you are unhappy with the chair’s ruling, you then have the right to file an appeal with the Dean. The Dean’s decision on the matter will be final.

UVU values and acknowledges the array of worldviews, faiths, and religions represented in our student body, and as such provides supportive accommodations for students. Religious belief or conscience broadly includes religious, non-religious, theistic, or non-theistic moral or ethical beliefs as well as participation in religious holidays, observances, or activities. Accommodations may include scheduling or due-date modifications or make-up assignments for missed class work.

To seek a religious accommodation, a student must provide written notice to the instructor and the Director of Accessibility Services at [email protected]. If the accommodation relates to a scheduling conflict, the notice should include the date, time, and brief description of the difficulty posed by the conflict. Such requests should be made as soon as the student is aware of the prospective scheduling conflict.

While religious expression is welcome throughout campus, UVU also has a specially dedicated space for meditation, prayer, reflection, or other forms of religious expression.

This course uses remote testing software. Remote test-takers may choose their remote testing locations. Please note, however, that the testing software used for this may conduct a brief scan of remote test-takers’ immediate surroundings, may require use of a webcam while taking an exam, may require the microphone be on while taking an exam, or may require other practices to confirm academic honesty. Test-takers therefore shall have no expectation of privacy in their test-taking location during, or immediately preceding, remote testing. If a student strongly objects to using test-taking software, the student should contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester to determine whether alternative testing arrangements are feasible. Alternatives are not guaranteed.