Generative AI Statement
Goals of GHS Learning Environment
Often there is no one solution for the issues we discuss in Global Health Studies. This is why so many of you thrive in our courses – because you seek to understand the real-world challenges of solutions rooted in ethics, theory, history, science, and centering diverse worldviews.
Building and nurturing critical thinking, listening, and reasoning skills are centered across our courses. GHS students learn to ask thoughtful questions and to create, frame, and support their arguments. You are often expected to find and use meaningful and relevant research. When reading and discussing you are challenged to listen to and learn from multiple perspectives. These skills are intrinsic to being an engaged citizen and necessary to being an ethical participant in all engagements with health. AI can both support and hinder these skills.
Uses of Generative AI
AI can support students when they use it as a tool to engage with materials presented in GHS classes. For example, students may use Generative AI akin to using Cliff Notes/Spark Notes to clarify their understanding of a text, but if you use something in an assignment taken from using Generative AI to assist with your understanding of a text, you need to cite it, just as you would any other source. Summaries from Generative AI should also be cited like any other source.
Appropriate* use of Generative AI within GHS classes:
- Checking your grammar and spelling
- Synonym tools available in Microsoft Word, Grammarly, and some GPT platforms such as Bard
- Using app recommendations to rephrase sentences or reorganize paragraphs that you wrote
- To brainstorm ideas, however, note that the output of these programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, and problematic in terms of where it came from
Like other tools, however, the use of AI can also hamper the acquisition as well as application of skills. When using Generative AI, be mindful of this tool compromising your ability to create or understand information. Generative AI does not produce or create knowledge; AI is a tool and only a tool.
Moreover, since one of the learning goals of GHS is to facilitate students’ ability to seek marginalized (and often missing) voices, please be mindful of the perpetuation of people’s marginalization within this tool as well as stereotypes and harmful framing of common narratives.
Inappropriate* use of Generative AI within GHS classes:
- Generative AI cannot, and may not, be presented as your own work. It is unethical to submit any AI-generated work as your own.
- You may not have any AI program generate (draft or final) any assignment given to you unless the assignment explicitly instructs you to use AI.
Citing Generative AI
If you do include material generated by Generative AI in an assignment, it needs to be cited like any other reference materials, and citation takes the form provided by Bentley University: Open Al, ChatGPT. Response to the prompt: “Why do Supreme Court Justices have unlimited terms” (September 5, 2023. https://chat.openai.com/).
In addition, students are expected to follow the Generative AI use guidelines identified by NU’s Medill School of Journalism when using Generative AI:
- Refrain from inputting original content, confidential, or private information into generative AI tools.
- Cite and verify generative AI content with multiple original sources, even if generative AI tools do not credit them.
- Keep an open mind, and question everything.
- Verify any content generated by AI.
- Do not use generative AI to substantially alter any elements of photos, video, or audio in a way that deceives audiences or materially changes the content or context of the piece
- Refrain from publishing hyper-realistic AI-generated images that are not entirely accurate or truthful.[1]
* These conditions are not fixed and could change as we learn more about AI and/or to adhere to Northwestern University AI policy(cies). However, the expectation is that your work is your work, and any evidence of inappropriate use of AI will be grounds to submit for advisement to Ricardo Galliano Court, Ph.D., Assistant Dean for Academic Integrity.
[1] Knight Lab, Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications, Sept. 11, 2023, v1