Course Policies and Expectations
Course policies and expectations
To help mitigate academic misconduct, it’s important to communicate expectations. This includes defining academic standards, assignment guidelines, and the consequences of misconduct. To avoid misunderstandings, address peer collaboration, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), and citation guidelines. Including these expectations in your syllabus is recommended when creating guidelines and policies for your course. Review them at the beginning of the semester and before each assignment and exam.
- Consider how comfortable you are with students working together. How do you define independent work or collaboration? Remind students regularly about your expectations for independent and original work. When collaboration is allowed, clearly define the limits for assignments. Without proper guidance, there is a possibility that students may inadvertently find themselves in violation of course policies.
- For take-home exams, be sure to provide students with a specific list of allowable resources and address the consequences of giving or receiving unauthorized assistance.
- It is crucial to effectively communicate policies and guidelines regarding the permitted and prohibited uses of GenAI in your course. Consider providing in-class demonstrations to showcase how this tool should or should not be utilized. For additional information and considerations, review the information on the CELT AI in Teaching page and use one of the example GenAI statements on page 2 of the Syllabus Checklist with Required, Recommended, and Additional Statements (docx).
- Share explicitly that using online academic Q&A platforms such as Chegg, Course Hero, or Quizlet and solution manuals to complete coursework is prohibited.
- Review the Office of Student Conduct’s Know the Code Resources for Faculty and Staff for additional information about policies and expectations.
