Most schools now leave AI rules to each course, within a campus framework. Good policies say what AI use is allowed, how to disclose it, how authorship is checked, and that a detector score alone never decides an outcome.
Three common approaches
- Prohibited: no AI use on graded work unless the instructor says otherwise.
- Allowed with disclosure: AI can be used for specified tasks, and students must say how they used it.
- Instructor’s choice: the institution sets principles, and each course syllabus sets the rules. This is the most common approach.
What a strong policy includes
- Plain definitions: what counts as AI use, including grammar tools with AI features.
- Allowed and prohibited uses, ideally with examples.
- How to disclose AI use, with a simple format.
- How authorship may be checked: drafts, version history, process records, conversations.
- How detector results are treated, and the statement that they are never the sole basis for a finding.
- The process when a concern arises, including the student’s chance to respond.
- Privacy: which tools student work may be submitted to.
How detectors fit in
Some institutions use detectors as a screening signal; others have turned built-in detectors off. Vanderbilt University, for example, disabled Turnitin’s AI detector in 2023, citing false positives, a lack of transparency, and evidence of bias against non-native English writers. Policies that do allow detectors increasingly require corroborating evidence.
The shift toward process
Many instructors now build process checkpoints into assignments and some ask for writing records. Tools such as Turnitin Clarity and Grammarly Authorship show how a document was written, which lets a policy focus on evidence rather than guesses.
Write your own
Our classroom AI policy template and free policy generator give you a starting point you can adapt to your course.
Sources
Last reviewed October 2026 by the AblePro team. Found something out of date? Tell us.