Institutional Guidelines for Generative AI Use

Purpose and Scope

The development of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) offers opportunities for creativity and productivity while simultaneously introducing privacy, quality, security, ethical, and environmental considerations.

KPU encourages the responsible use of generative AI. These guidelines provide direction for the use of GenAI across all institutional activities. It applies to staff, faculty, students, teaching, and research purposes. More specific guidance for use in these different contexts is provided below. Compliance with applicable provincial or federal legislation and institutional guidance ensures we have a secure, ethical, and sustainable model for GenAI integration at KPU while supporting individual agency and academic freedom.

Guidelines

All faculty, staff, and students must use and follow the relevant guidelines when engaging with GenAI at KPU.

Core Principles and Institutional Commitments

KPU is committed to supporting innovative AI integration in teaching, learning, and research while maintaining high standards of academic integrity.

The following guidelines apply to all with additional specific guidelines for Faculty, Staff, Students, and Research purposes:

Respectful

Respecting intellectual property and copyright when using generative AI requires careful consideration of both inputs and outputs.

  • Refrain from uploading/inputting copyrighted materials into AI systems without permission.
  • Output generated by AI may use or closely mimic copyrighted content without disclosure, creating risks for those who share or publish that material. Proper attribution, verification, and review of AI-generated content is key.
  • Respect the originality of scholarly and creative work.

Explainable

All users must be able to articulate how, why, and when AI is used in their day-to-day work. AI tools are not the best choice in every situation, and it should be clearly indicated when AI has been used to develop content.

Ethical

AI tools can produce content that is discriminatory, based on biases, and/or reproduces systemic inequities. KPU is committed to equity, decolonial, and anti-racist practices. Therefore, it is vital to critically assess whether GenAI is appropriate for the task and thoroughly review all information for accuracy, embedded stereotypes, and discriminatory narratives.
Users must:

  • Respect Indigenous protocols and community-specific data governance.
  • Avoid using AI to generate, reproduce, or distribute Indigenous knowledge without explicit permission.

Secure

All users are responsible for protecting private and confidential information as well as complying with applicable provincial or federal legislation (such as FIPPA) and institutional IT regulations on the use of AI products and services.

  • KPU student work cannot be inputted into any GenAI tool without their explicit consent.
  • The use of GenAI tools must be aligned with KPU policies and procedures for technology use and the management of confidential and private information.

Accountable

All users are responsible and accountable for content created by these tools, representation of this work, and the impact of their use. This includes ensuring that the generated content is accurate, legal, ethical, and compliant with KPU’s policies and procedures.

Accessible

KPU promotes an inclusive environment for all. GenAI can support accessibility in a number of ways. It can provide alternate formats for materials, translate content, generate descriptive text for images, and more. When implemented thoughtfully, GenAI tools can help reduce barriers. It is important to evaluate implementation to ensure uses of GenAI continues to be accessible to support inclusive environments.

Sustainable

KPU is committed to understanding and minimizing the ecological impact of AI integration in our operations. Use of AI should be determined in part through an analysis of the environmental impact of the adoption of new tools.

Teaching, Learning, and Research:

  • Faculty members have autonomy, within the parameters set out in the Faculty Guide, in determining appropriate AI use within their courses, using permitted technology.
  • Students must comply with their instructor’s decision regarding GenAI tool use in their courses, provided the use falls within KPU’s guidelines.
    • Outside of class activities, students may choose to use Gen AI tools as long as the student is not inputting copyrighted material into the tools and is not using restricted tools like DeepSeek on KPU systems (e.g. network, devices).
    • Using Gen AI tools for personal studying would not constitute an academic integrity breach as long as the direct outputs of those tools are not present in submitted course work and/or the tool is not being used during an exam, unless these tools have been explicitly permitted by an instructor for these situations.
    • Using generative AI for personal studying is not required for students.
  • For Research Activities, researchers should consult with the Office of AVP Research and Innovation, in particular their information on Compliance, when considering the use of AI in research (a detailed Research Guide is under development). It should be noted that AI use may span across all five research phases: idea generation, research design, data collection, data analysis, and writing/reporting. Researchers should be aware of the following:
    • Concerns regarding AI authorship, which is not allowed
    • Risks related to use of AI tools for image and data analysis
    • Disclosure requirements in publications, grant/funding applications, and review processes
    • Ethical implications for human subject research
    • Indigenous data sovereignty and community protocols
    • Compliance with privacy, data protection, and intellectual property laws
    • Risk management and mitigation approaches
    • Research security concerns related to AI
    • Intellectual property implications of AI-generated content
    • Funding agency guidelines for AI use in research
    • Terms and agreements with collaborators regarding AI usage

Continuous Improvement

These guidelines will undergo regular review to remain current with AI developments and emerging best practices. KPU commits to providing updated resources and guidance to support effective and ethical AI use across all activities.