Teaching & Learning
- Macalester does not set a single college-wide rule for student AI use in coursework
- Undisclosed or unauthorized AI use in assignments can be treated as a breach of academic integrity when it violates an instructor's stated rules
- Faculty are encouraged to state course-specific expectations, and the college says students should ask their instructors when expectations are unclear
Faculty should explicitly discuss and provide clear guidance on using AI in class; specifically, disclose if AI use is prohibited, permitted, or expected, and include on your syllabus a detailed policy for the use of AI in your specific course.
If you are unsure whether you can use AI for a class, ask your professor for guidance.
In courses and on assignments where AI use was prohibited, a student may not use AI in any stage of the assignment process. In courses and on assignments where AI use was permitted or required, a student who uses AI in ways that violate the instructor’s stated rules and expectations for AI use may violate this policy.
In courses and on assignments where AI use was not addressed by the instructor, students should ask their instructor. If a student uses AI in such a situation and the instructor determines such use was prohibited or should have been disclosed and/or cited, the student may violate this policy.
- Macalester does not provide a separate institution-wide AI rule specific to exams, quizzes, or tests in the provided sources
- AI use during assessments is governed by instructor direction, and using AI where it is prohibited or without required disclosure can violate academic integrity rules
In courses and on assignments where AI use was prohibited, a student may not use AI in any stage of the assignment process. In courses and on assignments where AI use was permitted or required, a student who uses AI in ways that violate the instructor’s stated rules and expectations for AI use may violate this policy.
In courses and on assignments where AI use was not addressed by the instructor, students should ask their instructor. If a student uses AI in such a situation and the instructor determines such use was prohibited or should have been disclosed and/or cited, the student may violate this policy.
If you are unsure whether you can use AI for a class, ask your professor for guidance.
- Students are told to consult instructors when expectations are not clear, and faculty are encouraged to specify whether such uses are prohibited, permitted, or expected
- Macalester presents AI as potentially useful for learning support, including brainstorming, summarizing, practice, and feedback, but says use depends on the course and assignment
AI can also support your learning in and outside the classroom, but there are also times when its use is inappropriate. The acceptable use of AI can vary from class to class and assignment to assignment.
Faculty should explicitly discuss and provide clear guidance on using AI in class; specifically, disclose if AI use is prohibited, permitted, or expected, and include on your syllabus a detailed policy for the use of AI in your specific course.
As students engage with AI, they are often learning in ways that are hidden from faculty members and disconnected from course materials or standards. Students may use AI to brainstorm paper topics, summarize readings, explain difficult concepts, generate practice questions and flashcards, identify where they need help, and get feedback on their work, among many other possibilities.
If you are unsure whether you can use AI for a class, ask your professor for guidance.
- The provided sources do not establish a Macalester-wide rule specifically for AI code generation or programming assignments
- Any use would fall under course-level instructor policies and the broader academic integrity rules on prohibited, permitted, or required AI use
not defined
Research
- For student honors research in the cited departments, Macalester requires disclosure when AI is used in thesis preparation and may require an explanation of how it was used
- More broadly, the responsible conduct policy says generative AI should not be listed as an author and authors remain responsible for all submitted content, including checking for plagiarism, fabricated references, and false statements
If students make use of AI, ChatGPT or other large language model software in the writing of the thesis, they should be transparent about this and specifically acknowledge where and how AI was used.
The department may ask students to explain in further detail and indicate the percentage of text generated by AI in the thesis and may ask students to remove portions generated by AI if the Department deems such use unacceptable.
In accordance with recommendations from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author. As authors have full responsibility for all the submitted content, they must check and may be liable for any plagiarism, fabricated references, copyright infringement, and false statements generated through AI use. Authors who choose to use AI-assisted technology while writing should acknowledge this and cite the AI and AI-assisted technologies in the acknowledgment section or methods. Authors should carefully review and edit the output because AI-generated content can often be incorrect, incomplete or biased.
- Macalester's provided sources do not state a specific rule on using AI for research data collection, analysis, statistics, synthetic data generation, or interpretation
- However, research-related AI use remains subject to data protection rules that prohibit entering protected or highly sensitive college data and personally identifiable information into generative AI systems without authorization
This policy applies to all members of the College community that create or handle College data. This includes all faculty, staff, consultants, volunteers, and others.
Do not upload, copy, or share this data outside of the applications listed in the approved systems list, without explicit authorization.
Do not upload or share PII or SPII with a generative artificial intelligence service that has not been approved by the College. If you are planning to use an approved service with data that includes SPII, please contact the IS Help Desk as additional review and contract terms may be required before use.
- Macalester's research integrity materials require disclosure of AI-assisted writing, forbid listing generative AI as an author, and place full responsibility on human authors for accuracy, plagiarism, references, copyright, and bias
- The IRB guidance also bars researchers from submitting personally identifiable information or protected health information to publicly available AI chatbots without a business associate agreement and says this use can create a confidentiality breach
In accordance with recommendations from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), Generative AI and AI-assisted technologies should not be listed as an author or co-author. As authors have full responsibility for all the submitted content, they must check and may be liable for any plagiarism, fabricated references, copyright infringement, and false statements generated through AI use. Authors who choose to use AI-assisted technology while writing should acknowledge this and cite the AI and AI-assisted technologies in the acknowledgment section or methods. Authors should carefully review and edit the output because AI-generated content can often be incorrect, incomplete or biased.
Publicly available generative AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT, are not currently approved to support analyses involving PHI and/or other forms of PII in the research context.
In the absence of a BAA, researchers should not share PHI and/or other forms of PII with a chatbot or related publicly available generative AI application. Doing so may breach an individual’s confidentiality and relatedly potentially violate HIPAA, FERPA, and other applicable laws and regulations.
Academic Integrity
- Macalester requires students to disclose and/or cite AI use when an instructor requires it, and failure to do so can violate academic integrity rules
- The college provides a recommended citation format for generative AI output and sample syllabus language that can require students to explain how AI was used and what prompts were entered
In courses and on assignments where AI use was not addressed by the instructor, students should ask their instructor. If a student uses AI in such a situation and the instructor determines such use was prohibited or should have been disclosed and/or cited, the student may violate this policy.
When using output generated by AI in one of your papers, cite the AI as the source.
Students should indicate what AI tool they used and explain how they used it. Students should include the prompts used for substantial queries and indicate what portion of the submitted work was generated by AI. This should be submitted as an appendix to the assignment if no other format is specified by the instructor.
Some examples of ways to cite AI in various formats:
You can cite AI-generated text using the following format:
In-text citation: (“Text generated by ChatGPT, personal communication, February 1, 2023”)
Reference list entry: none, since the text cannot be retrieved by someone else.
- The sources provided do not set out a university position on AI detection tools such as Turnitin or GPT detectors
- Macalester states that students may be found in violation of academic integrity rules for prohibited AI use or for using AI contrary to instructor rules, including where disclosure or citation was required
In courses and on assignments where AI use was prohibited, a student may not use AI in any stage of the assignment process. In courses and on assignments where AI use was permitted or required, a student who uses AI in ways that violate the instructor’s stated rules and expectations for AI use may violate this policy.
In courses and on assignments where AI use was not addressed by the instructor, students should ask their instructor. If a student uses AI in such a situation and the instructor determines such use was prohibited or should have been disclosed and/or cited, the student may violate this policy.
General ranges of sanctions include, but are not limited to: oral or written warning, resubmission of work, alternate or additional assignment, lower or failing grade on assignment, lower or failing course grade, or suspension or expulsion from the college.
Institutional & Administrative
- Macalester advises faculty to communicate course AI rules clearly and offers sample syllabus statements ranging from prohibition to conditional or expected use
- For faculty and staff generally, the college encourages experimentation but requires human review, warns not to rely on AI as a sole information source, and says personnel decisions such as hiring, promotion, tenure, discipline, and termination should not be based solely on AI-generated output
Faculty should explicitly discuss and provide clear guidance on using AI in class; specifically, disclose if AI use is prohibited, permitted, or expected, and include on your syllabus a detailed policy for the use of AI in your specific course.
Do not rely solely on AI as a source of information.
Macalester encourages faculty and staff to experiment with and innovate around AI services while taking into account the following considerations:
Always review, verify, and correct AI-generated text before using or sharing it.
Do not use AI-generated output as a basis for making personnel decisions, such as hiring, promotion, tenure, disciplinary action, or termination.
- Macalester has explicit data protection limits for AI use
- Users must not enter protected or sensitive institutional data into unapproved generative AI tools, must keep restricted data within approved systems unless explicitly authorized, and the college identifies Microsoft Copilot Chat as the approved AI tool for college data while warning that public chatbots may expose prompts to outside review
Macalester has approved the use of Microsoft Copilot Chat, with its Commercial Data Protection, as the AI chat service to be used with college data.
Protecting sensitive data is an important part of everyone’s role at Macalester and this responsibility extends to using generative AI tools.
Do not upload, copy, or share this data outside of the applications listed in the approved systems list, without explicit authorization.
Do not upload or share PII or SPII with a generative artificial intelligence service that has not been approved by the College. If you are planning to use an approved service with data that includes SPII, please contact the IS Help Desk as additional review and contract terms may be required before use.
Please be aware that public chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini, review prompts and may use them to train the system.
- Macalester has an institutional AI advisory structure and a stated governance approach focused on responsible, human-centered adoption
- The AI Advisory Committee is tasked with making recommendations on implementation, policy, support, and literacy, and the college frames its strategy around experimentation, critical evaluation, community dialogue, and alignment with mission and values
Macalester College is committed to exploring emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), engaging in community conversations about opportunities and concerns, and adapting our policies, practices, and technologies to the evolving landscape.
Macalester’s AI Advisory Committee was formed to provide recommendations regarding the college’s implementation and use of generative AI tools, as well as to assist with the creation of educational resources and policies.
The AI Advisory Committee is charged with monitoring and making recommendations regarding AI tools and related technologies. This includes implementation and policies related to administrative, teaching and learning, and research uses, as well as AI support and literacy.
Macalester’s engagement with AI is grounded in our institutional values and mission. We strive to be a community where students, faculty, staff and the institution make thoughtful decisions about using AI. That means critically evaluating new technology, learning together, experimenting, and communicating openly and often. We believe people should be at the center of decisions about when and how AI is used at Macalester.
DocuMark: Responsible AI Use for Academic Integrity
Knowing your institution's AI policy is step one. DocuMark helps enforce it fairly by empowering universities to manage AI-generated content, prevent cheating, and support student writing through responsible AI use.
Common Questions About Macalester College's AI Policies
Macalester College has defined AI policies in 12 of 12 categories, with an overall coverage score of 100%.
Macalester requires students to disclose and/or cite AI use when an instructor requires it, and failure to do so can violate academic integrity rules. The college provides a recommended citation format for generative AI output and sample syllabus language that can require students to explain how AI was used and what prompts were entered.
Macalester states that students may be found in violation of academic integrity rules for prohibited AI use or for using AI contrary to instructor rules, including where disclosure or citation was required. The sources provided do not set out a university position on AI detection tools such as Turnitin or GPT detectors.
Macalester has explicit data protection limits for AI use. Users must not enter protected or sensitive institutional data into unapproved generative AI tools, must keep restricted data within approved systems unless explicitly authorized, and the college identifies Microsoft Copilot Chat as the approved AI tool for college data while warning that public chatbots may expose prompts to outside review.