Generative AI resources and guidance for faculty
Dear faculty,
With the new academic year underway, we write to remind you of resources and guidance available to you on the use of generative AI in your research and teaching at UIC. As Large Language Models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 become more prevalent in our daily lives and work, it is essential that we are well informed of their benefits and risks, and that we encourage their responsible use in our academic community. The University of Illinois System and the UIC campus have developed guidance and resources to help you and your students navigate this rapidly evolving digital environment while safeguarding our standards of academic integrity and excellence.
The UIC Statement on Responsible and Acceptable Use of Generative AI reflects the collaborative effort among UIC and U of I System leadership in IT security, risk, and privacy to develop guidance that aids in the responsible and acceptable use of generative AI. We encourage you to read these documents in their entirety:
- Generative AI Principles: Generative AI Principles – EVPAA (uillinois.edu)
- Awareness: Awareness – EVPAA (uillinois.edu)
- Guidance and Support: Guidance and Support – EVPAA (uillinois.edu)
- Generative Guidance for Students: Generative AI Guidance for Students – EVPAA (uillinois.edu)
- Generative Guidance for Instructors: Generative AI Guidance for Instructors – EVPAA (uillinois.edu)
Students, staff, faculty, and researchers who need to enter high-risk or sensitive data into a generative AI tool or service should submit a ticket to security@uic.edu and reference the above guidance, principles, and policies. High-risk or sensitive data created, stored, or managed in any generative AI solution must have appropriate contracts and data-use agreements in place.
The UIC Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence (CATE) Teaching Guide on AI Writing Tools provides guidance for faculty on addressing the use of generative AI tools by students in their coursework. The guide includes AI usage policy example statements that you can adapt for your course and include in your syllabus. For further information, we encourage you to attend an upcoming CATE workshop on Enhancing Teaching and Learning with Generative AI Tools on October 10 or November 8, which will be facilitated by colleagues from the Instructional Design & Media Production Studio. For additional guidance or specific questions related to AI use in the classroom, please email teaching@uic.edu.
Finally, at our Provost’s Leadership Retreat last month, we featured a panel of UIC and UI Health experts in our Generative AI and its Future @ UIC session. The panelists’ presentations were richly informative, and were followed by a dynamic Q&A. You can view a recording of the session and download a copy of the presentation by clicking the session title above. Additional generative AI resources, collected from the U of I System and UIC campus, as well as from external sources, are posted for your information and use on the Provost’s website, and will be updated as new content becomes available, or as content becomes dated.
Our commitment to our system mission “to transform lives and serve society by educating, creating knowledge, and putting knowledge to work on a large scale and with excellence” drives our approach to using generative AI in responsible, ethical, and appropriate ways, which preserve academic integrity and privacy. Please share any suggestions or questions with us at provost@uic.edu.
Sincerely,
Karen Colley, PhD
Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Robert Barish, MD, MBA
Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs
For more information, please contact:
Alanna O’Connor
alanna@uic.edu
