Sample Syllabus Guidance for AI Use

This page will help provide you with sample syllabus guidance for AI use.

  • Home
  • Sample Syllabus Guidance for AI Use

Start with Learning, Not the Tool

Before selecting or writing an AI policy, identify the knowledge, reasoning, practice, or performance the course and its assignments are intended to develop. A useful statement explains not only what students may do, but why the boundary exists.

  1. Identify the learning. What must students know or be able to do independently?
  2. Evaluate the role of AI. Would AI support practice and feedback, or would it perform the thinking the assignment is designed to assess?
  3. Define permitted and prohibited uses. Describe functions, not only brand names.
  4. Decide what evidence matters. Determine whether students should retain notes, drafts, source trails, prompts, outputs, revision histories, or other process evidence.
  5. Address responsibility. Explain expectations for disclosure, verification, privacy, access, and academic integrity.

Mercer Policy Foundation

The Mercer University Artificial Intelligence Policy establishes the following foundation:

  • Generative AI must be used responsibly and consistently with academic and professional ethics, citation standards, academic-integrity requirements, and the Student Code of Conduct.
  • Faculty decide whether, when, and how generative AI may be used in courses, programs, and research.
  • Faculty must communicate those expectations in syllabi, assignment instructions, and research guidelines.
  • Students are responsible for understanding and following the expectations communicated by faculty.
  • People who submit, publish, or share AI-assisted content remain responsible for that content.
  • Schools, colleges, departments, and programs may establish additional requirements consistent with University policy.

Use accurate academic-integrity language. Do not automatically describe every unauthorized use of AI as plagiarism. Depending on the conduct and the applicable campus or program procedures, it may constitute cheating, plagiarism, or another form of academic dishonesty. A durable phrase is: “Unauthorized AI use may constitute an academic-integrity violation under the procedures applicable to this course.”

Consequences should be stated and applied consistently with the Mercer Academic Integrity Policy and the procedures for the student’s campus or program.

Use Two Levels of Guidance

1. Establish the course baseline

The syllabus should explain the default expectation for the course, the educational reason for that expectation, and where students should ask questions.

2. State the rule again for each assignment

A syllabus statement alone is not enough when permissions vary. Label assignments as Red, Yellow, or Green and identify the specific AI functions that are permitted, prohibited, or required. If an assignment differs from the course baseline, state clearly that the assignment instructions control for that task.

Red: No AI

Students complete the identified work without generative or agentic AI assistance because independent performance is part of what the assignment measures.

Identify any conventional tools, accessibility features, or approved accommodations that remain permitted.

Yellow: Limited AI

Students may use AI for specifically named purposes, such as brainstorming, practice, feedback, or debugging, but not for other parts of the task.

State what must be disclosed and what process evidence students should retain.

Green: Broad or Required AI

AI use is permitted or required as part of the learning. Students must direct, evaluate, verify, and refine the work rather than submit output uncritically.

The final submission must still demonstrate the student’s understanding and judgment.

The AI Assessment Scale provides a more detailed five-level framework. It should be used as an assessment-redesign tool, not merely as a label or a method of policing students.

What Every AI Statement Should Address

  • Purpose: Why does this approach support the course or assignment learning outcomes?
  • Permitted uses: What may students use AI to do?
  • Prohibited uses: What thinking, production, or decision-making must students perform themselves?
  • Disclosure: When and how must students describe material AI assistance?
  • Verification: How must students check facts, sources, citations, quotations, calculations, code, and other outputs?
  • Evidence: What drafts, notes, sources, prompts, outputs, or other process records should students retain?
  • Privacy and access: What information may not be entered, and what supported tool or alternative will be available?
  • Questions: How and when should students ask whether a particular use is appropriate?
  • Noncompliance: How will possible violations be addressed under the applicable Mercer procedures?

Define AI use by function

Many familiar applications now include optional AI features. A policy should distinguish among conventional functions such as spelling, formatting, and citation management; generative functions such as drafting, summarizing, rewriting, translating, coding, analyzing, or creating images; and agentic functions that search, manipulate files, or complete multiple steps for the user. Permission to use an application does not necessarily mean that every feature within it is permitted.

Sample Syllabus and Assignment Statements

Adapt these statements to the course, discipline, student population, learning outcomes, and applicable school or program requirements. Replace all bracketed text before use.

Recommended Course Baseline: Conditional AI Use

AI tools can support learning when they are used in ways that preserve the thinking and practice this course is designed to develop. Each assignment will state whether generative or agentic AI use is prohibited, limited, permitted, or required. Unless an assignment explicitly permits AI use, do not use AI to produce, solve, analyze, code, create, rewrite, translate, or complete work submitted for credit.

When AI use is permitted, you remain responsible for the accuracy, quality, sources, citations, calculations, and final intellectual choices in your submission. You must protect private and protected information and disclose material AI assistance as directed. Unauthorized AI use may constitute an academic-integrity violation under the procedures applicable to this course. If you are uncertain whether a use is permitted, ask before submitting the work.

Red Assignment: Independent Work Required

This assignment is designed to assess your independent ability to [identify the knowledge, skill, reasoning, or performance]. Do not use generative or agentic AI to brainstorm, draft, answer, solve, analyze, code, create, revise, translate, or complete any part of this assignment. [Identify any conventional spelling, formatting, citation-management, accessibility, or accommodation-related tools that remain permitted.]

If you are unsure whether a tool or feature is allowed, ask before using it. Unauthorized AI assistance may constitute an academic-integrity violation.

Yellow Assignment: Limited AI Use

For this assignment, you may use AI only to [list permitted purposes, such as generate practice questions, brainstorm alternatives, receive feedback on a student-written draft, or debug student-written code]. You may not use AI to [list prohibited purposes or the thinking students must perform themselves].

If you use AI, include the required disclosure and retain [identify prompts, outputs, drafts, revision history, source notes, or other process evidence]. You are responsible for evaluating and verifying all AI-assisted content. Do not submit AI output unchanged or represent AI-generated work as your own thinking.

Green Assignment: Broad or Required AI Use

AI use is [permitted/required] for this assignment because learning to direct and evaluate AI is part of the assignment goal. You may use AI to [identify the permitted or required functions]. Your submission must demonstrate how you evaluated, corrected, refined, or built upon the AI-assisted work and must reflect your own disciplinary understanding and judgment.

Verify all facts, sources, citations, quotations, calculations, and other outputs. Include the required disclosure and retain [identify required process evidence]. You remain responsible for everything you submit.

Disclosure and Citation Are Different

Disclosure explains how AI materially shaped the student’s process or product. Citation identifies material used as a source according to the required documentation style. A student may need to disclose AI assistance even when a formal citation is not appropriate.

Sample disclosure template

I used [tool and model, if known] to [purpose]. I provided [describe the kind of input or material supplied]. I used the output by [explain what was accepted, rejected, revised, or developed further]. I verified [facts, sources, citations, quotations, calculations, code, or other claims] by [describe the sources or method used].

Faculty may require a shorter disclosure, a prompt-and-output appendix, or another form of process documentation appropriate to the assignment.

Citation-style guidance

Students should consult and cite the original sources behind AI-generated summaries whenever possible. AI-generated citations, quotations, and source descriptions must be checked directly because AI systems may invent sources or misrepresent what a source says.

Privacy, Security, Access, and Accommodations

Protect information

Do not enter FERPA-protected student records, protected health information, identifiable patient or client information, human-subjects research data, confidential or proprietary information, private communications, or copyrighted materials you are not authorized to share into an AI system unless that specific use and workflow have been explicitly approved.

When AI use is assigned, direct students to a Mercer-supported environment when one is available. Mercer access or authentication does not mean that every type of sensitive or protected information may be uploaded. Students should follow the current guidance for responsible use of AmplifyAI.

Provide equitable access

  • Do not require students to purchase a premium AI subscription unless it is an approved and disclosed course expense.
  • Check account, age, and terms-of-service requirements before requiring an external platform, particularly when students under 18 may be enrolled.
  • Provide an appropriate alternative when privacy, accessibility, account eligibility, or technical requirements create a barrier.
  • Do not prohibit assistive technologies or accommodations that have been approved through University processes. Clarify how an accommodation interacts with the course’s AI expectations.

AI Detection Is Not Proof

AI detectors may display indicators of possible AI-generated writing, but these systems can misidentify human and AI-assisted text. A detector score should not be treated as proof of misconduct or used as the sole basis for an adverse decision.

When submitted work raises a legitimate concern, consider the full context and follow the applicable Mercer process. Relevant evidence may include:

  • the assignment instructions and the student’s understanding of them;
  • notes, drafts, source trails, prompts, outputs, or revision histories;
  • the student’s ability to explain the work, choices, sources, and reasoning;
  • connections to class activities, earlier work, or independently produced evidence; and
  • other information relevant under the applicable academic-integrity procedures.

No single detector score, revision history, writing-style comparison, or process artifact establishes authorship by itself. Use human judgment and the established University process.

Related Mercer and Faculty Resources

For help developing a course or assignment statement, contact Susan Codone at codone_s@mercer.edu.

Last reviewed: August 2026. AI capabilities and embedded features change quickly; faculty should review course and assignment language before each term.