News Photo by Kayla Wikaryasz Van Lare Hall and other areas of the Alpena Community College are in the learning phase on how to wisely incorporate AI into classrooms and other departments of the college. Administrators intend to create policy to help regulate the blossoming technology.

ALPENA — Officials at higher education institutions are under pressure to create policy for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as it continues to become more advanced.

At Alpena Community College, an official, overall, AI policy is in the works, Vice President of Instruction Paige Gordier said. Currently, ACC instructors can choose how much they want to implement AI into their classrooms.

Gordier said that the college wants instructors to have the freedom to use AI in their classrooms as they see fit.

“AI is a tool that’s here to stay,” ACC President Don MacMaster said. “To deny that is to deny reality. What we’re trying to do is figure out how to incorporate AI into assignments so students can figure out how to use it.”

“On the downside, it allows students to misrepresent their work, or use AI to do their work for them,” he said. “That’s something that the college does not support.”

The college is integrating Grammarly into instructors’ toolboxes, which can be used to detect AI content and track the length of time it takes a student to write an essay, Gordier said.

There was a lot of pressure for the college to purchase an AI checker immediately. Grammarly keeps students’ work private, while AI checkers make it public, so the college chose to purchase Grammarly in the best interest of student privacy.

AI is a useful tool for students to use to brainstorm ideas and create outlines, Gordier said. However, it is important for students to use their own creativity and not misuse AI. Instructors have demonstrated the abilities and limitations of AI by asking students to draft their own outline and then have AI create an outline to compare the two.

Some instructors are experimenting with AI to draft lectures or presentations, Gordier said.

On the administration end, AI has been useful in analyzing policies and comparing policy handbooks to see what the differences are, a process that can take hours without the help of AI, MacMaster said.

“Every school everywhere is facing the same issue of encouraging student work, but recognizing we are in a world where AI can be a shortcut to using the critical thinking we’re trying to encourage,” MacMaster said.