AI Policy
Overview
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has created amazing learning, growth, and productivity opportunities for software developers. The Software Development program at BYU-Idaho encourages students to appropriately use AI in their learning.
Policies
The following are the AI policies for courses in the Software Development Program:
- ✅ You are encouraged to use AI as a learning assistant. Ask it questions about the topic of the lesson. Explore deeper into other related areas. Ask it the purpose of a section of code. Ask it why a certain section of code does not work or how it could be improved. Converse with it like a tutor that is helping you understand a concept, but not giving you the answer.
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❌ Because the assignments in these courses are designed to help you practice and internalize fundamental principles, unless specifically noted in the assignment instructions, you should not copy or directly use code from AI or any other source. You may reference these during the learning process, but all code or other content that you submit should be something that you authored yourself.
If you directly copy code or other content from AI or any other sources on the internet, you will not learn the information you need to be successful in other courses or in your career, and you will receive a 0 for that assignment or fail the course.
- ✅ In many cases, assignments will encourage you to use AI in specific ways. This will be clearly listed in the assignment instructions. In these cases, follow the instructions in that assignment. As a general rule, you should make sure you understand and can explain each line of code in your assignment, or each idea of other content that you have included. You should also clearly document anything that was generated with AI.