Guidance on Gen AI 

UPEI has prepared provisional guidelines regarding the use of generative AI (gen AI) for instructors and students. These guidelines include recommendations and align with UPEI policy where applicable. The guidelines can be viewed by expanding the sections below. The most recent updates are in bold font.  

Provisional Principles  

These overarching provisional principles have guided the development of these recommendations and will continue to be updated through conversations with our campus community.  

• Students want to learn, and instructors want to support their learning.  

• Participatory learning – learning which happens in relationships and community – continues to be a valuable and vital way for students to learn.  

• Assessments that require students to document the process of learning continue to be meaningful for student learning.  

• Gen AI poses risks, as well as opportunities. Individuals will have different reactions and different expectations for the technology.  

• Disciplinary perspectives and departmental cultures will vary around the use of gen AI.   

Provisional Guidelines  

UPEI supports the use of AI in teaching and learning where appropriate.  

1. UPEI’s existing academic integrity regulations apply when using gen AI. These are  Regulation 20 from the Undergraduate Academic Regulations and Regulation 6 from the Graduate Academic Regulations.   

2. Instructors have the freedom to choose whether or not to use gen AI tools in designing course materials, activities, or assessments. If an instructor chooses to use gen AI, the decision should be based on course learning outcomes, the interests of the individual instructor, and conventions and expectations of the discipline.   

As with any pedagogical tool or approach, instructors should weigh the benefits of incorporating gen AI into their courses against any risks inherent to the tool or approach. Instructors should also take into account the rapidly evolving nature of gen AI technology and reassess the opportunities and risks of any tool or approach on a regular basis.     

3. Both instructors and students are prohibited from inputting anyone else's personal information into a gen AI tool. This includes other students' or faculty members' personal information such as class lists, students' grades, etc. Instructors should not encourage or instruct students to input their own or others personal information into a gen AI tool. 

UPEI is legally obligated to ensure the safe collection, use and disclosure of personal information. As such all use of personal information must adhere with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Personal information includes any identifying information such as, name, address, health information, contact details, race, religious or political beliefs, age, gender, educational history (non-exhaustive list) and includes audio recordings and photographs of identifiable individuals. Please watch this video to learn more about personal information. 

In selecting third-party technology tools educators must avoid those that sell student data to companies building large language models, as well as companies that use student data to train AI models or to improve services and products. Educators should review user agreements, privacy policies and consult with the Privacy Office if unsure. 

7. Legal questions of intellectual property (such as copyright and privacy) continue to be evaluated by provincial and federal courts. Until such questions are resolved, employees should not use generative AI created content for proprietary work and all UPEI policies continue to remain in effect, including the UPEI Access to Information and Protection of Personal Information and Privacy Policy. 

4. UPEI instructors and students have access to the enterprise version of Microsoft Copilot. This enterprise version is integrated with your UPEI account, protected by Enterprise Data Protection (EDP) and not used to train Microsoft's foundational model. As such this is the Gen AI tool that should be used for UPEI work (e.g. institutional data, internal communications, etc.). 

The enterprise version of Copilot can be accessed by going to https://m365.cloud.microsoft/chat.(opens in a new tab) Note that not every version of Copilot is your UPEI enterprise version. Use that link and sign in with your UPEI credentials to ensure you are using the proper version. 

While this is the version that should be used for UPEI work; faculty, staff, and students should not enter anyone's personal information or their copyrighted materials into any Gen AI tool, including the enterprise version of Copilot.    

5. Instructors with courses that incorporate gen AI should:  

• Build their own AI literacy.  

• Ensure the incorporation of gen AI will support core learning outcomes and offer meaningful learning.  

• Describe or discuss with students the strengths, limitations, and ethical considerations of the technology, including factual inaccuracies and gaps, societal biases present in the training data, and the rationale for using gen AI in the course.  

• Be aware of (and regularly review) the terms and conditions of gen AI tools they use in their courses, including age restrictions that may preclude some students from accessing the tool(s). Alternatives for tools that require users to be 18+ should be provided for students who are under 18.  

6. As with other course materials, instructors should ensure that all students have a fair and equitable opportunity to gain access to the same set of features for any tools required in the course. Any required subscriptions, including their cost and the time period during which a subscription is required, should be disclosed in the syllabus at the beginning of the course. Restrictions such as age, geography, cost or other such limitations should inform the instructor’s decision to require the tool (or provision of alternative activities or assessments where applicable). 

7. If instructors use gen AI in their course and teaching materials (including for student assessment), they should describe in the course outline and/or materials the extent to which gen AI has or will be used. Instructors are responsible for the quality, ethics, and relevance of all of their course and teaching materials, including those produced by gen AI tools. Instructors using gen AI should take reasonable efforts (e.g., updating associated digital literacies) to mitigate potential adverse impacts to instruction and assessment.  

8. Instructors should clearly communicate to students if and to what extent use of gen AI is acceptable in the assessments and learning activities in their course(s) - as well as how it should be acknowledged or cited. It's recommended that instructors be very clear about their expectations regarding gen AI, and explicit when providing assignment instructions. To help reduce confusion, these expectations should be communicated in various ways, such as including them in course syllabi, on Moodle, in instruction guidelines, or when assignments are discussed in class. Instructors may find tools like the AI Assessment Scale useful, especially if different assessments within the same course have differing expectations. Explain how different instructors can have different expectations for AI tools, and if use is permitted by one instructor, this does not mean AI tools will be permitted by others (see Appendix A for example syllabi or assignment statements). 

9. Instructors should be prepared to address student concerns about required gen AI use in their courses. With the approval of the course instructor, students may opt out of learning activities or assessments that require the use of gen AI, if opting out will not compromise the learning objectives of the course. In these cases, students will be required to provide alternative and equivalent evidence of their learning as proposed to, and agreed to by, the course instructor. 

10. Instructors who include assessments that incorporate student use of gen AI should:   

• Consider including reflective components that invite students to comment on the use of/experience with gen AI in the assessment.  

• Explicitly review criteria and/or rubrics in ways that demonstrate how the use of gen AI is being assessed (see Appendix B or the TLC Instructional Resources Hub for examples).  

• Foster a learning environment that promotes academic integrity in all course learning activities.  

11. As per the UPEI Undergraduate Academic Regulations, third-party tools designed to detect AI-generated content cannot be used to substantiate allegations of academic dishonesty. Current evidence demonstrates that third-party AI-detection tools do not reliably work to detect content generated by artificial intelligence. 

12. If an instructor suspects that student work may have violated the academic integrity policy, they should review the steps to take and refer to Undergraduate Academic Regulation 20 and Graduate Academic Regulation 6. Instructors may want to use this educator resource on conducting a discovery interview with a student to understand the situation. 

Rationale and Additional Information 

Over the fall 2023 semester the Generative Artificial Intelligence Taskforce (GAIT) was created and tasked with reviewing these guidelines as well as the exploration of challenges, risks and opportunities associated with Gen AI in teaching and learning at UPEI. These guidelines will continue to be updated as UPEI explores additional topics and as technology rapidly changes.  

Feedback and suggestions for future updates to these guidelines are encouraged. Please submit any input through this form. Feedback on experiences, questions and concerns about using gen AI in teaching and learning will inform future updates to the guidelines .. 

Potential policy changes implied by these guidelines will be addressed by the relevant governance bodies, such as APPC, Senate, or Board of Governors. Institutional policies take precedence over these recommendations.  

UPEI acknowledges the costs of gen AI arising from significant ethical issues related to academic integrity, labour, intellectual and artistic property rights in the data sets, and the environmental impacts of training large AI models (Lawton, 2023; Li, et al., 2023; Trust, n.d.). The TLC can suggest resources for instructors looking to educate themselves regarding these costs and explore ways of mitigating their impact.  

What is Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI)?  

Generative artificial intelligence uses models that learn the patterns and structure of their input training data and then generate new outputs (text, images, or other media) that have similar characteristics.  

What is Agentic Artificial Intelligence? 

While gen AI tools focus on the generation of content, whether that content is text, conversation, images, videos, etc., agentic AI tools focus on performing tasks and making autonomous decisions. An agentic AI may use a gen AI tool to generate text for a report or summary but would also have access to other programs. For example, a customer service agentic AI might use gen AI to chat with customers but also have access to the company’s order database to report or update the customer’s order status. 

Risks of Gen AI 

Members of the UPEI community should be mindful that gen AI technologies pose risks, even when not used with harmful intent, potentially leading to misinformation or other negative outcomes. Such risks include the generation of misleading content (e.g., fabricating research findings, producing inaccurate summaries, or creating fictitious citations), violations of personal privacy (e.g., uploading student data with names or other identifiers), and biased decision-making (e.g., perpetuating biases built into the gen AI tools), among other unintended consequences and impacts of using these tools. 

Dialogues with various units and Faculties across campuses, as well as between post-secondary institutions, will continue to refine and expand these guidelines as new information and technology emerges, and as we learn to work with these technologies. One example includes ongoing work to explore privacy impact assessments and security evaluations on recommended gen AI tools. We recognize that the Gen AI landscape can change rapidly. These guidelines will be updated accordingly, and changes communicated with the campus community.  

 The Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC) will continue to provide training and resources for instructors on how to use gen AI effectively. Instructors can email TLC@upei.ca for support or book an appointment with an Instructional Designer. Here are additional options to learn about gen AI use in teaching and learning.     

• Find responses to several FAQs around Gen AI  from the Instructional Resources Hub on the TLC website   

• View the micro-course on  Gen AI Essentials. 

• Refer to resources for instructors to talk with students about gen AI available through the Instructional Resources Hub on the TLC website.  

• See the TLC Newsletters delivered to your email inbox (also archived on the TLC website).  

• Watch Campus Notices or check the Learning Events Calendar on the TLC website for upcoming workshops.  

• Request a 1-1 consultation and connect with members of the TLC team by emailing TLC@upei.ca.  

Revision History  

The original version of these guidelines was developed by the Task Force on Generative AI in Teaching and Learning at McMaster University. The initial guidelines developed for UPEI were shared with a small group of instructors and administrators in August 2023 to adapt them to the UPEI context. We gratefully acknowledge the feedback these individuals provided.  

The UPEI Generative Artificial Intelligence Task Force (GAIT) was formed in October 2023. As one of its first initiatives, the GAIT reviewed and revised the Provisional Guidelines in December 2023. In November-December 2024, the GAIT reviewed and updated the December 2023 Provisional Guidelines. A further revision was completed in fall 2025. The December 2025 Provisional Guidelines are the current version. 

Based on your course needs, choose from the following: 

1. Gen AI tools may be used without restrictions  

Syllabus statement example: Students may use gen AI throughout this course in whatever way enhances their learning; no special documentation or citation is required.  

2. Gen AI tools may be used in specific circumstances as part of learning activities 

1. Indicate which assignments will require students to use AI tools. 

2. Indicate which AI tools are used for learning activities. 

3. Explain the purpose of using AI tools for specific assignments. 

4. Provide instructions on how to get started using the AI tools. 

5. Provide instructions on how to engage with the AI tools to complete learning activities. 

Syllabus statement example: Students may use gen AI in this course in accordance with the guidelines outlined for each assessment, and so long as the use of gen AI is referenced and cited following citation instructions given in the syllabus. Use of gen AI outside assessment guidelines or without citation will constitute academic dishonesty. It is the student’s responsibility to be clear on the limitations for use for each assessment and to be clear on the expectations for citation and reference and to do so appropriately. 

3. Gen AI tools may be used as student learning supports or resources 

• Indicate which assignments may include the use of AI tools. 

• List the AI tools students may choose. 

• Ask students to submit step-by-step procedures for using AI tools, including prompts. 

• Include a clarifying statement such as, “Do not copy, paraphrase or translate anything from anywhere (ChatGPT included) without saying where you obtained it”. 

• Provide Information about how to cite AI generated content. 

Syllabus statement example: Students may use gen AI for [editing/translating/outlining/brainstorming/revising/etc] their work throughout the course so long as the use of gen AI is referenced and cited following citation instructions given in the syllabus. Use of gen AI outside the stated use of [editing/translating/outling/brainstorming/revising/etc] without citation will constitute academic dishonesty. It is the student’s responsibility to be clear on the limitations for use and to be clear on the expectations for citation and reference and to do so appropriately. 

4. Gen AI tools are prohibited and are not to be used in a course 

• Make it clear when students are not allowed to use gen AI in a course by including a statement. 

• Explain why AI tools are not allowed. 

Syllabus statement example: AI tools are not allowed to assist in any type of preparation or creation of the assignments in this course. Using AI tools in any way is a violation of academic integrity standards. Since this course focuses on building your original ideas and critical thinking, using AI tools would compromise the learning purpose, therefore is prohibited. Contact your instructor(s) for more information before you use any AI tools. 

The information above was developed by Teaching and Learning Services at Carleton University https://carleton.ca/tls/teachingresources/generative-artificial-intelligence/ and the MacPherson Institute at McMaster University https://mi.mcmaster.ca/generative-artificial-intelligence-in-teaching-and-learning/#tab-content-provisional-guidelines 

For more examples, check out this compilation of sample syllabi statements by Lance Eaton 

Prior to creating assessments using gen AI, instructors are encouraged to building AI literacy.  GAIT welcomes feedback and input from UPEI instructors to refine these rubrics and offer further examples.  

These two sample rubrics generated by McMaster University. 

McMaster University acknowledges the assistance of ChatGPT 4.0  in creating these sample analytic and holistic rubrics. The prompts included “Imagine you are a rubric generating robot who creates reliable and valid rubrics to assess university-level critical thinking skills. You have been tasked with generating a rubric that evaluates students critical thinking skills and incorporates their use of gen AI. Create two holistic rubrics and two analytic rubrics to assess these skills.”  With human editing, the output from these prompts was to provide examples of the kind of rubrics that could be used to assess the integration of gen AI in course assignments.