Artificial Intelligence Policy

I. Purpose

Goucher College is dedicated to fostering a thriving academic environment, supporting its faculty, staff and students in their pursuit of knowledge through study, research, and teaching. As an innovative institution, we recognize the potential of artificial intelligence to aid faculty, staff, and students in their work, but also recognize the need for policy for the ethical, legal, and responsible use of artificial intelligence technologies throughout the college community.

II. Scope

This policy establishes the rules for faculty, staff, and students in their use of artificial intelligence tools when carrying out their responsibilities on behalf of Goucher College.

III. Definitions

Artificial intelligence (AI): Systems designed to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, including but not limited to language processing, image recognition, decisionmaking, and problem-solving.
Generative AI: Systems that create new content such as text, images, audio, or video based on patterns learned from training data. It includes any machine-based tool designed to consider user questions, prompts, and other inputs to generate human-like output.
Academic integrity: Adherence to ethical standards in teaching, learning, and scholarship.
AI-Assisted work: Any work product created with the aid of AI tools.
Confidential information: Any business or technical information or research result belonging to Goucher College, a Goucher College community member, collaborators or other third parties, that is not publicly known or that has been provided or received under an obligation to maintain their information as confidential.
Personal information: Any information that either alone or in combination with other information, identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to an individual.

IV. Principles for AI use

Human oversight and accountability. AI systems should augment rather than replace human judgment, with clear lines of responsibility for AI-informed decisions.
Transparency. The use of AI must be disclosed with an attribution statement when used in academic scholarship, teaching, or research, the production of student submissions, the evaluation September 2025 Artificial Intelligence Policy Page 2 of student work, or in any administrative work where proof of authorship or authenticity is central to the work product.
Fairness and non-discrimination. AI systems should be deployed in ways that promote equity, resist linguistic homogenization, and avoid perpetuating or amplifying bias.
Privacy and data protection. The use of AI applications must respect privacy rights and comply with FERPA and other data protection regulations.
Academic integrity. The use of AI must support rather than undermine the academic honor code.

V. Artificial Intelligence in teaching & learning

A. Faculty responsibilities

The faculty member’s AI policy for student use should be on every syllabus – it should define acceptable use, identify prohibited uses, use only with prior permission from the professor, use only with acknowledgement, and/or use is freely permitted without acknowledgement.
The AI policy for student use should be discussed with students at the outset of the semester.
The right of students to use AI and the extent to which generative AI tools are used in a course are at the faculty member’s discretion.
Faculty should consider sharing with students the ways in which they are using generative AI in the course (if they are). Without such disclosure, students will likely expect their faculty are not using generative AI.
Faculty should acknowledge and attribute use of generative AI if they are using it to write course content, particularly course lectures.

B. Student responsibilities

Students must read and abide by any statements in their course syllabus regarding AI or seek further information from any instructor if needed. If a course syllabus does not include an AI policy for the course, the default policy is Goucher College’s Academic Honor Code.
Students must abide by Goucher College’s Academic Honor Code.
Students should not put any personal or private information of their own or others in generative AI tools, whether it is for academic or non-academic purposes.

VI. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in academic research

Section VI. policy is adopted from the University of Maryland’s AI guidelines accessed on June 16, 2025:

Maintaining research integrity and safeguarding intellectual property, confidentiality and ethical standards are essential when using generative AI tools. All users should review and evaluate the output for accuracy and potential bias and should disclose the use of generative AI with proper attribution.

Researchers should follow specific policies set by journals, funding agencies, and professional societies when reporting research. Many federal agencies use tools to detect AI-generated content, as generative AI tools often paraphrase from other sources, raising concerns regarding plagiarism and intellectual property.

Researchers should not input federal, state, or Goucher College data into externally sourced generative AI tools due to the high risk of exposing sensitive information to public or opensource domains. They should also avoid using generative AI-automated meeting tools to record or capture discussions involving sensitive data or topics. If unsure about the recording practices of external hosts, vendors, or subcontractors, researchers should seek clarification to ensure compliance and appropriateness. If a host insists on using generative AI-automated tools despite concerns, Goucher College researchers are advised to decline participation to protect institutional data integrity and privacy.

Researchers should exercise caution, as AI-generated outputs may infringe on thirdparty intellectual property rights. Generative AI responses are derived from preexisting works, and their use in research may require additional scrutiny to avoid legal or ethical conflicts. While the United States Copyright Office has taken the position that work product entirely created by an artificial intelligence (“AI”) program is not copyrightable, work product containing some lesser amount of AI-generated material along with a larger amount of human-generated work does not bar copyrightability. It is unclear at this time what allocation of human-generated work will be required to permit copyright protections in work product. Creators of work product should assume that copyright protection will likely extend only to the actual human expression, along with any non-AI assisted original text in the work product. It is also unclear at this time whether the “fair use doctrine” will apply as a defense to training an AI model using copyrighted materials. Researchers are encouraged to consult with Goucher College’s legal counsel before training any AI model or large language model (“LLM”) with any data, before using any AI models or LLMs to generate work product, and prior to using any AI-generated work product in college curriculum materials and other publications.

For research that may result in invention, the US Patent and Trademark Office recognizes AIassisted inventions, and patent protection may be sought where one or more persons have made a significant contribution to the invention.

Research involving AI systems that may involve data generated from or data that impact human subjects requires appropriate Institutional Review Board approval. When using AI for data collection and/or analysis, it is the responsibility of researchers to abide by standards of protection of human subjects, ethical considerations, and informed consent; to reduce potential for bias; and to secure, if required, the appropriate type of IRB approval.

VII. Artificial Intelligence (AI) in administration & operations

The use of generative AI should align with institutional policies, safeguard sensitive information, and ensure outputs are accurate, unbiased, and appropriate for the intended purpose. It is recommended that individuals keep records of AI generated drafts or outputs, particularly when assembling information to inform decision-making or in drafting external communications.

A. General Administrative Work

Goucher College community members must not input any confidential information into generative AI tools, except when permitted by validated contract language and security controls that have been approved by Goucher’s legal counsel.

Each department and/or division manager is encouraged to create and share with their employees a protocol establishing permissible and prohibited uses of generative AI tools and how to disclose and attribute use of generative AI tools. (Faculty will abide by the sections detailed in this policy but should ask their direct superiors for assistance or clarity when there are questions.)

AI should never be used to replace human judgment in decision-making.

B. Procurement

AI systems acquired or developed by the College must align with this policy.
Vendors must provide adequate transparency regarding how their AI systems function, including for products that are already in use.
College-developed AI applications must undergo appropriate review as determined by the Chief Information Officer (CIO), before deployment.

C. Examples of appropriate uses of generative AI tools

Streamlining workflows
Drafting communications
Assembling information to inform decision-making

D. Prohibited uses of generative AI tools

Inputting any confidential College information or data into generative AI.
Inputting any private College information or data into generative AI.
Using generative AI to create marketing logos. Students, faculty, and staff should only use logos and graphics approved by the Office of Communications (see Brand Standards and Style Guide).

VIII. Privacy and data governance

If generative AI accesses personal information, it may violate individual privacy rights and fail to comply with data protection laws. If it accesses confidential information, the College risks losing intellectual property rights and exposing that information to unauthorized third parties. Students, faculty, and staff must avoid sharing personal data, whether their own or others, when submitting essays, reports, or other writing to generative AI.

A. Data Protection

Personal data must not be input into any generative AI tools. This includes the personal data of students, faculty, college employees or other stakeholders unless permitted by validated contract language and security controls that have been approved by the College’s legal counsel. Informed consent should be obtained when individuals (or their data) may be subject to generative AI informed decisions.

IX. Compliance & enforcement

Community members should report concerns about the use of AI in scholarship, teaching, or research to the Office of the Provost and for any violation of these policies by a full-time or part-time employee including student workers to the Office of Human Resources.

There will be no retaliation of employees who report violations of the AI policy to either the Office of the Provost or the Office of Human Resources. Violations of this policy may result in appropriate disciplinary actions.

X. Updating this AI policy

This policy will be reviewed at least once each semester to reflect rapid changes in generative AI technology and any new federal or state regulations.

XI. Resources

Related Goucher College policies include:

XII. Responsible office

For more information or if you have questions about this policy, please contact risk.management@goucher.edu or associateprovost@goucher.edu.

XIII. History

Adopted: September 2025.

All Policies