Use Generative AI Effectively: Academic Integrity at Centre

The use of GenAI may or may not be a violation of academic integrity at Centre—be sure to read over your professor’s policies on AI carefully and then to follow up with them if you have any questions at all. In general, a good rule of thumb is to assume that any use of GenAI is a violation of academic integrity at Centre, using it only if your professor gives you explicit permission to do so.

Generative AI and Turnitin at Centre

Centre professors use Turnitin’s AI detection tools to help determine whether a student has used AI. Every assignment submitted to Turnitin at Centre is reviewed by the AI detector, although students do not see the resulting percentage suspected of AI use. Please note: the resulting percentage of AI Turnitin detects is not alone sufficient to result in any academic integrity penalty from the College. On the other hand, there have been cases where Turnitin’s AI detector has not flagged an assignment for AI use and yet students have used AI. Turnitin’s AI detector is a tool Centre uses in academic integrity cases, but it very much not the final word.

Generative AI and Academic Affairs at Centre

If a professor suspects that a student’s work has violated academic integrity rules for any reason at all (such as AI use, plagiarism, disallowed collaboration, other cheating), they are contractually required to contact the office of Academic Affairs, which will then conduct an investigation into the matter. In addition to gathering the relevant information from the professor, a Dean will meet with the student to discuss the matter. If a student is found to be responsible for the violation, and if it is the first such violation, the Dean will attempt to work out a solution together that meets with the approval of all parties: the professor, the Dean, and the student. If no solution can be arrived at, or if the violation is not the student’s first, then Student Judiciary may get involved to resolve the situation through a hearing.

In general, Centre’s approach to academic integrity assumes that all students are basically honest people who want to make good decisions and are at college to learn. While there are penalties for violating the rules of academic integrity, the emphasis for first violations is helping students realize its importance in all their academic work at Centre. In all situations, every member of the Centre College faculty, administration, and staff is devoted to every student’s success and well-being.

You can  take some simple steps to help combat allegations of an academic integrity violation:

1. Educate yourself about AI with this guide, recognizing the way AI is present in almost every application. Be careful to understand that any suggestions an application makes that seem to have required a detailed understanding of your assignment (in areas like clarity, repetitiveness, organization, and even really specific, targeted synonyms) are signs that the application is intelligent—and therefore using AI. When in doubt, don’t take such a suggestion without knowing your professor is OK with it!
2. Use Google Docs, which automatically keeps a detailed version history for your documents.
3. Or use Word online (as provided by Centre), which also keeps a detailed version history. Word is part of the Office 365 package available to all students, staff, and faculty. Visit https://sites.google.com/view/itsknowledgebase for more information. (Please note: Word documents saved to your laptop or other local device do not maintain a version history!)
4. Avoid writing in one document and then pasting your work into another document before submitting your assignment. Doing makes it seem that all your work appeared out of nothing all at once, perhaps as a result of copying material from AI and pasting into your document.
5. Keep your files organized—online or on your laptop—to help prove that you have worked over a long period of time on your assignments.
6. Finally, verify that you are allowed to use AI (of any kind) for all assignments in every course. When in doubt, ask your professor!

Thank you to Academic Affairs for contributing this page of the Use Generative AI Effectively research guide.