AI at UNCG | Governance | Digital Trust Guidelines

Digital Trust Guidelines

As the use of generative AI tools continues to grow at our university, it’s important to understand how to use these tools safely and appropriately. Generative AI can create new content (text, images, video, and more) based on user input, but like any new technology, it has its benefits and its limitations. It’s essential to understand that generative AI is not infallible and can sometimes generate incorrect information. It is also important to consider the ethical and privacy implications of using these tools, and to use them in a manner that is respectful and compliant with university policies. We are committed to protecting the privacy of our students, faculty and staff.  

Before using a generative AI tool, consider the following questions:

  1. Do not share information that is internal, sensitive or highly sensitive to university policies and rules. Examples of such information you should never submit to GenAI tools include: 
    • Student information
    • Personnel information 
    • Information that the university has committed to keep confidential, for example, in a contract, a grant application, or a disclosure to research participants
    • Information about the university that is confidential, proprietary, or otherwise not public
  2. Additionally, do not share valuable intellectual property, whether yours, the university’s, or someone else’s. Be certain any information submitted to an AI-based model is public and does not include sensitive or personally identifiable information – including information that could identify someone when combined with other data. 

The owner of intellectual property is entitled to control who can copy or use that intellectual property. By submitting information to a generative AI tool, you may give up valuable rights to control who can use that intellectual property in the future. This is especially problematic if you do not own the intellectual property or do not have the right to authorize others to copy or use it. 

  • Gen AI can potentially address some of the biggest challenges in education today. Nonetheless, as educators and students, we face a new frontier as we navigate a world in which the distinction between content generated by AI and humans is rapidly blurring.
  • To support conversations about how to include generative AI in your teaching, you are invited to contact University personnel with specialized training and resources to assist you – AI for Teaching and Learning.

Consider whether you or the university need to own the intellectual property rights of selected materials. Materials prepared using a generative AI tool may not be eligible for intellectual property rights if there is insufficient direct human involvement in their development. Not owning intellectual property rights may impact your or the university’s ability to publish, distribute, patent, or use the materials. 

Look for tools that make it easy to find their privacy, ethics, risk, safety and accessibility policies. 

Intellectual Property Considerations

Intellectual property laws are designed for humans, and we’re just beginning to have legal cases to help establish how we’ll protect creative work made with AI tools. Generally, free generative AI tools assume that you are giving your prompts and inputs to them in return for the use of their tool. Use them with the assumption that all of what you give them and create with them is public.

Reminder: “If you are not paying for the product, you are the product.”

Submitting Content to a Generative AI Tool

Generative AI tools learn through their interactions with users. For that reason, many generative AI tools require you to agree that they can keep the information you submit for future use, including by providing it to other users. This is especially true for free generative AI tools.

Examples include:

  • Student information
  • Personnel information
  • Information that the university has promised to keep confidential, for example, in a contract, a grant application, or a disclosure to research participants
  • Information about the university that is confidential, proprietary, or otherwise not public

The owner of intellectual property is entitled to control who can copy or use that intellectual property. By submitting information to a generative AI tool, you may give up valuable rights to control who can use that intellectual property in the future. This is especially problematic if you do not own the intellectual property or do not have the right to authorize others to copy or use it. Be absolutely certain any information submitted to an AI-based model is public and does not include any sensitive or personally identifiable information – including information that could identify someone when combined with other data.

When you find a tool you would like to adopt, UNCG has committed resources to help you assess and integrate a variety of tools into your work and classes. By using an UNCG-approved tool, you will benefit from the data privacy protections and cybersecurity terms we have agreed to, as well as the risk mitigations we have put in place.

Before you use a generative AI tool, you should understand whether you are agreeing that the tool can keep or use the information you submit and, if so, whether that conflicts with your other responsibilities.

Many of these tools are ‘click-through agreements,’ and do not go through a formal procurement process. Using such tools as part of your role at the University may require taking on personal risk for the use of that tool.

Leverage UNCG’s Pre-Purchase Review and Vendor IT Risk Assessment process to ensure that the tool has been reviewed and how to integrate it into Canvas.

Do not upload any of your own work that would result in loss of copyright or intellectual property.

Using the output of an AI tool

The output of a generative AI tool is a combination of the input you provide to the tool and the information the tool supplies from its data resources and processes. The more you interact with the tool, the greater your personal contribution to the resulting materials. For example, you choose what information to submit and what questions to ask, and you may also provide additional input, make follow-up inquiries, and edit, select, or compile the output of the generative AI tool to assemble the final product.

Before using a generative AI tool to prepare materials, consider whether collaborating with the generative AI tool to prepare those materials will interfere with your ability to use the output in the way you plan.

Be honest about your use of generative AI tools in preparing the materials. Do not hide or misrepresent your tool use and be prepared to answer questions about how the tool contributed to the materials. If the recipient of the materials is potentially unaware that you used a generative AI tool to create them, you should affirmatively disclose that you used a generative AI tool. For example, if you were asked to provide a writing sample as part of a job application, you should disclose to what extent a generative AI tool produced the end product, as the prospective employer would otherwise assume that you had prepared the materials yourself.

Educate yourself about and follow any specific rules that apply to the preparation of specific materials, including any rules that restrict the use of generative AI tools in preparing information. This could include rules in a classroom syllabus or assignment or grant agreement provisions.

Consider whether you or the university need to own the intellectual property rights of selected materials. Materials prepared using a generative AI tool may not be eligible for intellectual property rights if there is insufficient direct human involvement in their development. Not owning intellectual property rights may impact your or the university’s ability to publish, distribute, patent, or use the materials.

Various grant sponsors may take different approaches to using generative AI. For example, the NIH prohibits reviewers from using generative AI tools to analyze and critique NIH grant applications and R&D contract proposals, seeing them as a violation of confidentiality requirements.

Understand that the international community may come to different conclusions on your rights regarding generative AI and intellectual property. The US recently launched an effort to understand the emerging space of generative AI and copyright. As of 2023, the United Kingdom has developed copyright and AI working groups. Europe is considering broader AI regulation, for which intellectual property will be a component.

  • Which humans are contributing to your work, and what is their contribution?
    • What expectations does your team have regarding those contributions?
    • What existing agreements or contracts might frame your work?
      • Grant stipulations?
      • Work for Hire agreements?
      • Employee agreements?
    • Where are your team members, and what international frameworks might your work fall under?
  • Which AI tools are you using, and what are those tools contributing to your work?
  • How do your human contributions significantly shape and define the final product?
  • Do you have documentation of the design process and the inputs coming from your human teams?

Building Digital Trust

Digital Trust is built on a foundation of preserving data dignity, designing for cybersecurity and architecting for resilience. With genAI, we are laying the groundwork for future opportunities to explore creativity and pursue our mission of access at scale.

Transparency is a key element to building trust. 

Look for tools that make it easy to find their privacy, ethics, risk, safety and accessibility policies. 

ChatGPT and OpenAI 

UNCG does not have an enterprise contract with OpenAI and has not agreed to terms and conditions that would protect your use of the tool. Consider all use of ChatGPT to be public, and currently without privacy or copyright protections.

For an approved alternative, Microsoft Copilot Chat is the free-to-use version of Microsoft 365 Copilot, offering handy assistance to users as they brainstorm, summarize data, generate images and more.

Additional Guidance

By fostering a culture of awareness, responsibility, and compliance, we can ensure that the utilization of generative AI at UNCG enhances our academic and administrative mission. 

We recognize that the innovative application of generative AI presents a tremendous opportunity for enhancing learning, research, and administrative functions at UNC Greensboro.  

As we embark on this exciting journey, it is imperative that we adhere to a set of principles and guidelines that align with our institutional values, federal regulations and state laws. 

UNCG’s Provost Office provides resources for generative AI in Teaching. 

Policy Resources 

Attribution and Special Thanks

Governance