Earlham College trusts students who enroll at Earlham to be honest seekers of truth and knowledge. This trust is extended to all students by other students and by teachers, and is manifested in a variety of forms. For example, you may have an in-class exam that is not proctored. Unlike many colleges and universities, Earlham does not ask students to sign an oath affirming that they did not cheat on an assignment, since this would imply that people are either inherently dishonest or will be honest only when they explicitly swear to it.
Students must be mindful that, although Earlham encourages cooperative and collaborative, rather than competitive, modes of learning, one’s work must still be one’s own, unless explicitly assigned to a group. Giving or receiving aid inappropriately on assignments and tests, submitting artificial intelligence (AI)-generated content in violation of stated rules, or plagiarizing by using words, ideas, or creative content other than one’s own without credit, constitutes a serious breach of our trust in one another and in the integrity of the search for truth.
Because of the rapidly evolving nature of AI tools available, it is useful to distinguish between “assistive” AI and “generative” AI. Assistive AI tools can help with tasks such as grammar and spelling checks in writing, transcription, summarizing longer works, and finding research sources. These tools can help users without creating original content. Generative AI tools receive user prompts and produce new written content, visual images, musical compositions, computational solutions, etc. based on patterns learned from large datasets. Use of these tools raises important questions about authorship and originality, and faculty may determine that their use interferes with the learning process, whether by omitting essential steps in student learning, or by impeding a faculty member’s ability to evaluate student learning. Students and faculty must also consider authorship and copyright before feeding information into these tools. If a faculty member suspects that use of AI has interfered with the learning process for a student, that may initiate the conduct process described below. (Note: both types of AI, as well as human consultation, were used to help draft these definitions.)
Per Earlham’s 2025 Policy on AI Usage in the Classroom, “Faculty members have the freedom to determine if or how students are allowed to use generative AI tools in the classroom, and are expected to communicate course and assignment expectations clearly to students. … Students are responsible for understanding and following all course policies as stated by their instructors on course syllabi and assignments.” Therefore, not following a course or assignment policy on AI usage may be considered a violation of Earlham’s academic integrity policy.
Those who believe they have witnessed violations of academic integrity should feel the obligation to speak about this to the student(s), and/or report the incident to the instructor if the student declines to self-report.