When is it okay to use AI in my classes?

Plagiarism

We live in an electronic age where anyone can be a publisher if they have a computer with access to the Internet. However, if you cut and paste something created by someone else without giving credit to the author, you are plagiarizing. Even if you've summarized information found in a book or online, if you don't give credit to the person where the idea came from, you are committing intellectual property theft. Always give credit where it is due.

If, for example, you worked hard on a paper and later found out that your friend was writing a paper on a similar topic and took a few of your paragraphs and copied them word for word into her paper, how would you feel? Is this fair? You would think it was unfair that your friend took credit for your ideas. The following are all examples of plagiarism:

1. Turning in someone else’s work as your own.
2. Reusing a paper you submitted for a previous course by turning it in for another course without permission.
3. Collaborating with others on an assignment that you were instructed to do by yourself.
4. Not correctly citing information you find while doing research.
5. Changing small words but keeping the structure of someone else’s sentence and using it as your own.
6. Copying so many words from a person, book, or online site that most of your work is not your own.
7. Buying homework or writing from someone else and using it as your own.

Artificial Intelligence

Academic integrity is one of our most important values. We want you to spend time as a critical and creative thinker who explores the curriculum, discovers interests and skills, and strives for excellence as a learner. Your responsibility to yourself and others is to learn and grow as a hard-working, thoughtful, independent thinker—and that requires a commitment to academic integrity.

ChatGPT and other sources can be a helpful tool when brainstorming to complete assignments. You can use AI as a tool to help make your writing stronger. Avoid overusing it, though. Don’t make perfection your goal. Instead, stay true to your personal voice and writing style. We expect your final submissions to Mizzou Academy to be completed in your own, original words.

Here are two things to avoid:

• Asking AI to write an answer to a prompt.
• Copying in your rough draft and asking it to rewrite it for you.

When you do this, you’re not the author of the work anymore. Remember, the final piece should still contain only your original ideas and still be written in your unique voice or style. If it doesn’t sound at all the way you usually talk, then you have gone too far!

Here’s what to try instead:

Write a full draft on your own. Then, revise it on your own, too. Asking your teacher for advice is a great place to start. The more work you do without AI at first, the better.

After that, use AI for very targeted help. Instead of copying in your paper and asking for a full rewrite, ask AI questions to help revise the paper in layers. You can use prompts like these:

• Correct sentence fragments to become complete sentences.
• Correct subject-verb agreement.
• Correct spelling errors.
• Identify possible word usage errors.

If you use AI in this way, you can strengthen your paper. You can also see step-by-step what it’s fixing so you can learn along with it. And, as the author, you can make decisions about what changes to make. Just remember that we want to hear from YOU.The most important thing you can do as a student is express your own ideas and be trustworthy. An "A" grade means nothing if you sacrifice your integrity to achieve it. We encourage you to study and grow as learners, and to always give credit where credit is due.

Our academic integrity policy at Mizzou Academy is based on our values of ethical behavior, learning, and giving all stakeholders the benefit of the doubt. Given that collaboration, research, and technical literacy are vital 21st-century skills, we are committed to helping students use these skills with academic integrity.

Our policy is not to score plagiarized assignments, exams, or quizzes.

While the following procedures offer general guidelines, we make official decisions on a case-by-case basis.

DEFINITIONS: Mizzou Academy’s academic integrity policy is aligned with the University of Missouri’s academic integrity policy. Please see below. (These definitions and background are posted on the Provost’s Advising Council’s webpage which can be found here: https://advising.missouri.edu/policies/academic-integrity)

The following actions are cause for concern that may lead to the procedures outlined below:

• Use of any unauthorized assistance on quizzes, assignments, or examinations.
• Dependence upon the aid of sources beyond those authorized by the instructor in writing papers, preparing reports, solving problems, or carrying out other assignments.
• Acquisition or possession without permission of tests or other academic material belonging to a member of the University faculty or staff.
• Knowingly providing any unauthorized assistance to another student on quizzes, assignments, or examinations.
• Use by paraphrase or direct quotation of the published or unpublished work of another person without fully and properly crediting the author with footnotes, citations, or bibliographical reference.
• Unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.
• Unacknowledged use of original work/material that has been produced through collaboration with others without release in writing from collaborators.
• Unoriginal work that has been created through artificial intelligence (AI), such as ChatGPT, Bard, and other online tools. Turnitin (TII) offers an initial flag for our review. However, our Mizzou Academy team analyzes each submission to make official plagiarism determinations.
• Full Plagiarism: 50% or more of the content copied inappropriately from an outside source.
• Partial Plagiarism: 49.9% or less of content copied inappropriately from an outside source.
• Over-Helping: The original author of an assignment shares their work to be copied by another student.

Should issues with academic integrity persist, Mizzou Academy will take an escalating approach to address those issues, including up to not being allowed to continue in your Mizzou Academy course or program.

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