The Rice Honor Council’s General AI Policy

“Utilizing AI software to generate ideas and pass them off as one’s own will also be considered plagiarism and will be adjudicated as such.”

(See. Academic Fraud and the Honor System)

This policy was voted on and ratified as of 2023. While this policy governs all academic work, professors are allowed to create their own course-specific AI policies. Furthermore, any course-specific AI policy supersedes the Honor Council’s general AI policy.

AI Accusations Frequently Asked Questions (for Faculty)

Q. What constitutes sufficient evidence to submit an accusation of unauthorized AI assistance?
A. Professors can submit reasonable suspicions based on factors such as the style and/or major differences from the given prompt. Professors are allowed to send in detector software results, such as GPTZero, and these results will be sufficient evidence to proceed to an investigative meeting. However, due to their inaccuracy, the Council will not use detector software as the sole or primary evidence in an adjudication but can serve as supplementary evidence for deliberation.

Q. What are some practices that professors could implement in their classrooms to curb unauthorized AI usage?
A. The following is a (non-exhaustive) list of recommendations from the Honor Council:

1. Request GoogleDocs/Word editing history with the assignment history to establish the existence of student-produced work.
2. Tailor unique prompts centered significantly around class material or discussion, requiring students to engage in critical thinking.
3. Highlight the downsides of using AI and encourage students to reach out for extensions when struggling with outside factors.

Q. How much of the writing should I feed into the detector/software to establish a reasonable suspicion?
A. Professors should feed a substantial portion (a majority) of the writing into the detector/software for results. Therefore, professors can submit detector results as evidence if most of the writing is flagged as AI-generated. However, as noted earlier, detector results will only serve as supplementary evidence during deliberation due to their frequent inaccuracy.

Q. Do I need to submit an accusation if I just have a slight suspicion from one assignment?
A. If you feel as though you do not have sufficient evidence to submit an accusation, you may wait till another assignment provides sufficient evidence. You can submit the past assignment as additional evidence or an accused assignment within itself, provided it is within 90 days of the suspected misconduct.