Building AI Policies in Higher Education: A Crowdsourced Approach to Best Practices
Introduction: The Urgent Need for AI Institutional Policies:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping higher education, impacting teaching, learning, research, and administration. Institutions must develop clear, ethical, and adaptive AI policies to navigate this transformation responsibly.The Southern University System (SUS)—as a leading HBCU system—must take a proactive stance in defining AI governance. While Southern University and A&M College (SUBR) is a key institution in this conversation, the broader SUS community, including faculty, administrators, and policymakers, must work together to ensure AI policies align with equity, ethics, and educational excellence.To support this effort, I am sharing an open crowdsourced repository of AI institutional policies, which can serve as a starting point for AI governance discussions across SUS.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping higher education, impacting teaching, learning, research, and administration. Institutions must develop clear, ethical, and adaptive AI policies to navigate this transformation responsibly.The Southern University System (SUS)—as a leading HBCU system—must take a proactive stance in defining AI governance. While Southern University and A&M College (SUBR) is a key institution in this conversation, the broader SUS community, including faculty, administrators, and policymakers, must work together to ensure AI policies align with equity, ethics, and educational excellence.To support this effort, I am sharing an open crowdsourced repository of AI institutional policies, which can serve as a starting point for AI governance discussions across SUS.
Why AI Institutional Policies Matter:
Institutions need AI policies to:
✅ Ensure academic integrity (e.g., use of AI in coursework and research).
✅ Protect data privacy (e.g., ethical AI use in student records).
✅ Provide faculty guidance on integrating AI in teaching.
✅ Establish research ethics for AI-driven studies.
✅ Define administrative AI applications (e.g., admissions, advising).Without clear policies, institutions risk inconsistent AI usage, ethical concerns, and potential academic misconduct. A well-structured AI policy protects both faculty and students while fostering innovation.
A Crowdsourced Resource for Institutional AI Policies:
To assist SUS faculty, administrators, and policymakers, I am sharing resouces compiled from leading universities and AI policy experts.
Institutions need AI policies to:
✅ Ensure academic integrity (e.g., use of AI in coursework and research).
✅ Protect data privacy (e.g., ethical AI use in student records).
✅ Provide faculty guidance on integrating AI in teaching.
✅ Establish research ethics for AI-driven studies.
✅ Define administrative AI applications (e.g., admissions, advising).Without clear policies, institutions risk inconsistent AI usage, ethical concerns, and potential academic misconduct. A well-structured AI policy protects both faculty and students while fostering innovation.
A Crowdsourced Resource for Institutional AI Policies:
To assist SUS faculty, administrators, and policymakers, I am sharing resouces compiled from leading universities and AI policy experts.
These resources include:
✔ Examples of AI policies from leading universities.
✔ Guidelines on academic integrity and AI usage.
✔ Ethical considerations for AI in education.
✔ Templates to help institutions craft their own policies.
✔ Examples of AI policies from leading universities.
✔ Guidelines on academic integrity and AI usage.
✔ Ethical considerations for AI in education.
✔ Templates to help institutions craft their own policies.
I encourage faculty, administrators, and the AI policy task force at SUS to explore this repository and consider how AI policies can be tailored to our institutions.
------------------------------
- Tracy Mendolia, has this amazing Padlet that is crowdsourced University Policies on Generative AI. It’s pretty amazing. But it’s also a little overwhelming and hard to navigate. I think padlets are great for collecting things as part of an activity, but personally, find them hard to sort through and figure out what is helpful and isn’t.
- Higher Education Strategy Associates has their AI Observatory which includes this page on Policies & Guidelines. This page does allow for some sorting based on country, and some other key terms (academic integrity, governance, guidelines, inclusion, operations, pedagogy, prohibition, policy, research, and statement). Granted, it isn’t clear what some of those terms means. Still, it’s a useful resource.
- Eaton started to build his own crowdsourced Institutional AI Policies & Governance Structures repository. Other institutions and universities can contribute to the work by submitting their institutional policies to continue to grow or share it with others.
============================================================
Professor Moustapha Diack is associated with the SMED department, College of Science and Engineering at SUBR.
Diack oversees a doctoral research group on AI4STEM. Diack is a leader in Ai4D and the pedagogical integration of AI in the classroom.
Diack oversees a doctoral research group on AI4STEM. Diack is a leader in Ai4D and the pedagogical integration of AI in the classroom.