Dr. Felicia Vulcu is an Associate Professor (Teaching Stream) in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, at McMaster University. In her recent ‘Research Skills Laboratory and Inquiry’ course (BIOMEDDC 3C06), Dr. Vulcu has introduced AI policies related to student work for lab reports and has used ChatGPT to generate overviews of her class AI policies for students.
In addition to these AI policies, Dr. Vulcu is also using AI to generate scientific images for this laboratory course. See her article on this topic for additional information.
Dr. Vulcu has created a set of AI policies for students taking the laboratory course. She developed the policy after reviewing existing approaches and chatting with colleagues who had previously implemented AI policies in their own courses. She feels that students should be able to use AI as a supportive tool for their work but should also not feel pressured into using it. The use of AI is completely optional, providing the student with autonomy in their choice. Dr. Vulcu provides explicit instructions to her students at the start of the course to inform them that they will not be penalized if they choose not to use AI for their work and that any students using it must follow the course AI policies.
Students receive a document outlining:
Note: Please contact Felicia directly if you would like a copy of the document (vulcuf@mcmaster.ca)
In addition to providing students with permission to use Generative AI in her class, Dr. Vulcu decided to create an AI-generated overview of the class policies. This demonstrates to the students that she understands the value of AI as a tool to generate content and also provides transparency about her own use of AI for the students.
The pilot implementation has been successful, with students following the policy and using AI in a transparent and responsible manner. During the first offering, AI use was permitted only for selected take-home assignments. She has been able to utilize this work to have educational conversations with her students around the positive and appropriate usage of AI.
Dr. Vulcu is in the process of adapting her AI policies for additional classes. As the AI policies are introduced more broadly, Dr. Vulcu is excited to see how students respond to these new approaches. To help guide future refinements, she is developing a short survey that will be distributed to both students and teaching assistants across her courses. Dr. Vulcu sees this as the next step in an ongoing process of working alongside students and teaching assistants to refine these resources and ensure they continue to support meaningful learning experiences.
As she adapts the policy for additional courses, she is exploring how AI can be appropriately incorporated into a broader range of take-home assessments while continuing to emphasize transparency, student choice, and assessment-specific expectations.
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Vulcu, F. (2026), AI-Generated Image of AI Use Policies for a Laboratory Course, Teaching in the Age of AI: Examples, Retrieved from: Introducing an AI use policy in a Laboratory Course, Licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Teaching in the Age of AI
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