As artificial intelligence programs and chatbots increase in popularity, the OU community considers the impacts of AI in the classroom.
With AI growing in prevalence, OU developed an initiative to address the significant impact of AI in education and the workforce.
Last month, OU announced a new role of chief AI officer in a press release as part of the “Lead On, University” strategic plan. The university also released an “AI Roadmap,” detailing its future AI plans.
“With roughly one-quarter of the University of Oklahoma’s research rooted in AI, OU is harnessing its transformative power across fields to drive real-world solutions and equip students to thrive as professionals and citizens amid rapid technological change,” the press release states.
Hunter Heyck, OU professor and a leading expert on the history of AI, said the university is taking into account both the national push toward AI and the concerns of the students.
“OU is attempting to be very thoughtful about this, which is good,” Heyck said. “Certainly, there are opportunities for you to use AI and research that are really remarkable.”
According to a June press release, OU allocated funds for 20 new AI-related projects, which are faculty-led and span a wide range of disciplines.
“They range from things in digital humanities to predicting which cells are going to turn cancerous,” Heyck said. “Just amazing stuff.”
According to the university’s AI website, OU has begun implementing AI throughout the institution, from a QuizBot for Socratic assessments in the College of Law to AI uses in strategic planning support.
AI setbacks
In September 2024, OU announced plans to open the Center for Creativity and Authenticity in AI Cultural Production, dedicated to examining the ethical, legal and social implications of AI.
Grant funding for the center was cut in April due to national funding terminations. Heyck was set to serve as the director for the center.
“I could go on at length about that, but we’re not the only ones who got that,” Heyck said. “There are a number of other people who’ve received grants from the (National Endowment for the Humanities) and other agencies that have seen their grants canceled on campus, and it’s had a big impact.”
Heyck said nationwide AI policies could have a big impact on the university. He said the powerful technology is developing rapidly, and guidelines for AI have not been set up yet.
“Those are all decisions that we just haven’t made yet,” Heyck said, “and until those decisions get made – and that will happen sometimes by government agencies or presidents or politicians, sometimes by business leaders, and sometimes by people just voting with their pocketbooks and what they’re willing to pay for overtime – those decisions are going to determine what AI means.”
Several universities across the nation are experiencing this same tension between hesitation and curiosity. Stanford University provided an overview of the public opinion of AI, outlining that as AI continues to increase, people’s distrust grows as well.
“If you look at the AI industry, I have a lot more trust in the tools than I have in the people who are running the industry,” Heyck said.
AI classroom policies
Heyck said there are four big areas of concern with AI in classrooms: academic integrity, the uncertainties for the future of work and employment, environmental concerns and data sovereignty.
OU seeks to create an academic culture that fosters student integrity both in and out of the classroom, according to the university’s mission statement, but AI is not mentioned in OU’s Academic Integrity Code. Heyck said this has led to professors developing their own in-class policies regarding AI use.
“I started getting answers in the short essays that were clearly written by AI,” Heyck said. “Now, when it's AI written, I catch 60% of them instead of 90%.”
After encountering uses of AI to cheat on class assignments, Heyck said he decided to implement his own standard for ethical AI use in his classes.
“For my undergraduate class, and also for my graduate seminar, I asked them to write a research paper and use AI in specific ways,” Heyck said. “I want them to keep a log of how they’re using AI along the way.”
Ze Shi Li, a computer science assistant professor, said AI has made it easier for students to violate academic integrity.
“AI has changed academic integrity in some ways,” Shi Li said. “Maybe 10 years ago, you were more concerned about someone copying someone else, or something along those lines.”
Despite this, Shi Li believes evolutions in AI are also positively impacting the classroom, describing the learning benefits as a trade-off for other concerns.
“Regardless of our (individual) opinions of AI, it’s something that is a part of society and everything else,” Shi Li said. “(AI) is incredibly important, from a student education perspective, to where our job markets are going. It’s amazing that this university also prioritizes it and recognizes that it’s important for student education.”
Mansoor Abdulhak, a computer science assistant professor, believes AI will remain a big part in everyone’s lives. Abdulhak said he created policies in his courses to encourage students to use AI to a certain extent.
“AI has not matured enough yet to give fully correct answers,” Abdulhak said. “It’s (the students’) job to analyze it, not just copy and paste the answers.”
Since the first addition of AI to his course syllabi, Abdulhak has used the International Business Machines Corporation guidelines to continually update his policies to reflect larger public and scientific discourse.
“This is the movement of the industry. All the templates that I use to teach my students are reflected from those industries,” Abdulhak said. “AI is a tool. We have to know how to use it correctly. I hope our students will utilize it. I believe for any skill, you need to train yourself by working with it.”
AI is going to continue developing, as will its uses in the academic world. According to OU’s “AI Guidance for Students” policy, it is the students' responsibility to know if and how AI can be used in courses and research, and faculty and instructors are responsible for communicating their expectations to students.
Kirsi Laker, a marketing sophomore, said most of her professors have encouraged AI use in their classes. Laker said professors still prioritize students doing their own research outside of AI.
“They say if you are going to use it, don’t use it as a search engine, because it can and will lie to you,” Laker said.
Kaylee Williams, an aerospace engineering sophomore, said most of her professors discourage AI use in the classroom.
“Pretty much every single syllabus has something to do with AI,” Williams said. “The policies basically tell us not to use it for any sort of writing, or in my coding class, don’t use it for coding.”
Williams said she has witnessed some of her classmates being accused of using AI in their assignments.
“I’ve never had a professor accuse me of using AI, but I have seen my peers being accused of using it,” Williams said.
Developing AI policies
OU’s “Lead On, University” strategic plan has a pillar with the goal of establishing a permanent structure for ongoing policy development regarding AI use.
“I’m part of our AI research planning group that’s been convened,” Heyck said. “I’m actually organizing a group, and this week, we’re about to propose an undergraduate certificate in AI ethics and society in five courses.”
The AI research planning group, outlined in the university’s AI roadmap, works to understand the complex challenges that may be presented in academic research and creative activities. It consists of six core members and a 22-member advisory team.
Heyck said the AI research planning group will potentially address the questions that would have been asked by the Center for Creativity and Authenticity in AI Cultural Production.
“That group has been very responsive to ethical questions,” Heyck said. “It’s an interdisciplinary group that involves computer scientists, social scientists and humanists like me.”
Heyck said some of the ideas suggested include developing an interdisciplinary AI studio and building a center that would focus on the study of AI in society.
Heyck said the Department of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine has also proposed at least two AI-related courses for the spring and fall 2026 semesters. One would be a 1,000-level course that would give students an overview of the history of AI through novels and films. The other would be an upper-division level course addressing AI’s role in the workplace. Both will be part of a new interdisciplinary certificate in “AI, Ethics, and Society.”
These courses must be approved by the dean, the Academic Programs Council and the provost, according to Heyck. He said there is a separate, parallel process for getting general education credit, which has just been initiated.
Heyck described AI as a “tech bubble” that would eventually burst, highlighting similarities between the emergence of AI to the emergence of the internet in the '90s.
“We’re seeing a similar sort of rhetoric about AI today, like ‘everything will change.’ The answer is ‘no, everything won't change,’” Heyck said. “People will still meet and fall in love. There will still be business cycles and expansions, and attractions. We'll still have to figure out how to get along with each other and live with each other, all of those basic things. But it is going to change a lot of things.”
Heyck said that the world is changing alongside developing technologies, but people can choose how these changes impact their lives.
“This push to use AI in everything, everywhere, is one of many examples of a drive to sort of speed everything up, …” Heyck said. “There are some things in life that are great if you can do them faster and more efficiently, but there are other things where it’s worth it to slow down. Take the time to really engage with the things that are meaningful to you.”
This story was edited by Natalie Armour, Ana Barboza and Thomas Pablo. Tori Pham, Arthur Shamayev and Gretchen Schultz copy edited this story.
