WCP Policy Requirements & Recommendations

The Brittain Fellow/WCP Handbook includes detailed guidance for supporting faculty in developing AI policies for their courses. While the following section provides an overview of the guidance, please review the guidance in full.

Requirements and Considerations

  • All WCP courses are required to have an AI policy stated in the syllabus so that students have a clear expectation of the extent of AI use allowed in the course.

  • WCP instructors are required to discuss the ways AI is to be used (or not used) in the course, as well as discuss reasons why AI will be or will not be used in the course.

  • In courses in which AI is to be used, such use should be approached critically—that is, by considering the potential advantages and disadvantages of using AI for a particular task, including the ways AI use may affect student learning and development as a writer-communicator.

WCP AI Policy Principles

AI policies in WCP courses are built on three principles: 

  • Responsibility:  Students are responsible for the work they submit. This means that any work they submit should be their own, with any AI assistance appropriately disclosed and any AI-produced content appropriately cited. This also means students must ensure that any factual statements produced by the generative AI tool are true and that any references or citations produced by the generative AI tool are correct. 

  • Transparency:  Any generative AI tools students use in the work of the course should be clearly acknowledged as indicated by the instructor. This work includes not only when students use content directly produced by a generative AI tool but also when they use a generative AI tool in the process of composition (for example, for brainstorming, outlining, or translation purposes).

  • Documentation: Students should cite any content generated by a generative AI tool as they would when quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing ideas, text, images, or other content made by other people.

WCP Policy Options

WCP instructors can choose from among four possible AI policy options: 

  • Recommended Policy: Generative AI Tools Allowed In Specified Instances 
  • Option 2: Generative AI Tools Allowed—With WCP Director Consultation And Approval 
  • Option 3: Generative AI Tools Not Allowed—With WCP Director Consultation And Approval 
  • Option 4: Develop Your Own Policy—With WCP Director Consultation And Approval

See the Brittain Fellow/WCP Handbook for further discussion of these options.

Inappropriate AI Use

Setting expectations through your class policy and by reinforcing the core principles of responsibility, transparency, and documentation is important. Even then, some students may engage in inappropriate AI use as defined by your policy. This section provides guidance about what to do in that case.

AI Detectors

In general, WCP faculty shouldn’t use AI detectors. Beyond the fact that their accuracy is limited, submitting student work to an AI detector raises questions of student privacy and intellectual property. Instead, instructors are encouraged to (1) assume the best intentions of most students in most situations, (2) talk with the class about the advantages and disadvantages of using AI for class-related tasks, and (3) engage in dialogue with students suspected of using AI inappropriately.

When You Suspect Inappropriate AI Use

Because widespread AI is so new, knowledge and best practices about dealing with inappropriate AI use are still developing. In general, discussions with students suspected of using AI inappropriately need to follow Georgia Tech policy regarding student integrity issues. If a faculty member chooses to talk with their student about possible inappropriate AI use, they should follow the GT Office of Student Integrity process for Faculty Conference Resolutions.  During the conference resolution meeting, current best practices indicate that instructors approach the conversation primarily in the context of student learning rather than necessarily one of cheating. Try to approach the conversation with curiosity, talking with the student about (1) indications that they may have used AI (e.g., fabricated quotes or details that do not align with class readings or discussions) and (2) how they approached completing the assignment. When preparing for such a meeting, Lance Eaton’s discussion of this conversation is a must-read.

Acknowledgment, Citation, and Documentation

Following from WCP’s principles of responsibility and transparency with AI, instructors should consider how they want students to acknowledge, cite, and/or document their AI use (if AI use is allowed). As writing and communication instructors, we want students to understand and practice these processes in preparation for potentially doing the same in other academic and professional contexts. 

Note that for each of these processes, the specific form of the acknowledgment, citation, or documentation may change according to genre or learning outcome. Further, these norms are still in the process of forming. If you require students to acknowledge, cite, and/or document their AI use, be specific about how to do that thing.

  • Documenting AI use: Instructors may want to ask students to not only acknowledge and cite AI use, but to provide full documentation about their use. Such documentation may include prompts, full chat transcripts, and reflections or statements about AI use. Requiring students to fully document their AI use can prompt critical thinking about AI use.

Other Georgia Tech Policies

While Georgia Tech currently (Fall 2024) does not have policies regulating educational uses of AI in classes, it does provide guidance in these areas: 

WCP Culture on AI Usage

With its emphasis on digital pedagogy and multimodal composition, the WCP has long worked to prepare students to write, speak, design, and otherwise communicate in relation to the technologies shaping the ways we communicate. We want our students to be ready to engage—critically and rhetorically—with a range of communication situations, and AI is now one of the technologies shaping our academic, professional, personal, and civic lives. The following concepts shape the program’s approach to using AI in the classroom: 

  • Technology in service to learning: Ultimately, learning how to use a particular technology such as AI is less important than for students to be comfortable understanding communication situations through the lenses of rhetoric, process, and multimodality. We want students to consider the use of technologies such as AI as being determined by their purpose, audience, genre, and argument, as well as by the affordances of the technology.

  • Critical engagement with communication technologies: We want students to approach AI use critically, asking themselves about whether AI use is actually useful for their particular rhetorical situation; the use of AI in relation to issues of privacy and intellectual property; the affordances of AI use for the rhetorical situation; and how AI use may affect their learning and development as writer-communicators. 

  • Encouragement to experiment: In general, instructors are encouraged to experiment with AI use in class—though to what extent is up to each instructor. Some discussion of AI use in relation to writing and communication is necessary—at a minimum, the instructor needs to discuss the course policy and the program’s principles of responsibility, transparency, and documentation. In any situation, instructors should provide students with clear expectations and a critical framework for approaching AI.

  • Setting expectations and establishing norms vs. surveillance and suspicion: We know AI detection software doesn’t work. Likewise, we can assume that most students in most situations aren’t intending to use AI to cheat. So be clear about your expectations, establish norms for your class, and help students think through why or why not to use AI. Rather than approaching student AI use with suspicion, looking for the slightest hint of inappropriate AI use around every corner, approach AI use as a possible learning situation.

To AI or Not to AI, and How Far to Go

Within program guidelines, instructors have flexibility for how much to incorporate AI into the courses they teach. When considering how much AI instructors want to incorporate into their classes, it’s helpful to think of AI in two ways: 

  • As a fact of the communication situation we find ourselves in (i.e., as a part of the rhetorical situation)

  • As a potential tool for thinking, writing/communicating, and teaching (i.e., as an aspect of electronic communication, the E in WOVEN)

Considering AI as a fact means recognizing that AI technologies are a part of the context of many/all rhetorical situations. It also means recognizing that students may use AI, even if the course policy says otherwise. Considering AI as a fact means not ignoring that AI exists. Discussing a critical approach to AI, the ethical decisions related to AI use, and the ways AI may support or harm learning are all ways to approach AI as a fact—even if the course doesn’t otherwise allow or discuss AI use. In this basic sense, AI as a fact should be discussed in some way in every WCP course. Approaching AI as a fact doesn’t mean an AI-skeptical instructor needs to be gung-ho for AI; it means accepting that AI is a part of the contemporary situation and as such needs to be approached critically (if not, in fact, skeptically).  

Considering AI as a potential tool goes a step further, though even here there is a spectrum of potential uses, from using AI as a way to brainstorm to using AI as a way to compose. The topics above—discussing critical analysis of AI content, the ethical decisions related to AI use, and the ways AI may support or harm learning—are all still important to considering AI as a tool. To these are added things like prompt engineering, analysis and evaluation of content, and tool affordances. Considering AI as a potential tool is not currently required in WCP courses, but instructors are encouraged to experiment with the possibility of doing so in ways that align with course outcomes and are pedagogically sound. 

In considering the extent of AI use in their courses, instructors are encouraged to review the other sections of the AI Pedagogy Portal, consult with the WCP Director or member of the AI Working Group, and consider the following disciplinary resources: