Top 5 Things for Students to Know and Do Regarding AI
- Acknowledge your use of AI
- Tell your professor and/or classmates that you used AI, and tell them how you used it: to create an outline for your paper, for example, or to help you craft your argument, etc.
- UMGC students are allowed to use AI to support your coursework! (And your professor can usually tell anyway if someone has used AI.) When you’re open and honest about using AI, it will help others understand your work better and give you constructive feedback.
- Verify AI-generated content
- Use Google and your research skills to double-check any facts or ideas that AI generates. AI often just makes things up—including citations to articles that don’t exist—so you have to carefully evaluate information that AI gives you.
- Add your own research and ideas to AI-generated content
- In most classroom assignments, like a research paper, only use AI as the basis for your work. Never let AI do the whole assignment for you (if you do that, the assignment you turn in probably won't be very good anyway). When you generate content from AI, it's almost always necessary to add your own research and thoughts. And adding them will greatly increase the value and quality of the work you submit!
- Review the AI guidelines in your syllabus and any further instructions that your professor gives you
- Knowing how to use AI effectively and ethically can make it an important element in your academic skillset!
- Learn to use AI effectively, efficiently, and ethically . . .
- . . . so you can list it as a skill on your resume and prove your AI capabilities to potential employers!