The Office of the Dean of Students recently announced a significant change to the UT honor code in an effort to maintain its relevance during the age of artificial intelligence and online education.
The previous iteration of the honor code read as follows:
“As a student of The University of Texas at Austin, I shall abide by the core values of the university and uphold academic integrity.”
Effective Sept. 6, the Honor Code was revised to the following:
“Affirmation: I pledge, as a member of The University of Texas community, to do my work honestly, respectfully, and through the intentional pursuit of learning and scholarship.
Elaboration: I pledge to be honest about what I create and to acknowledge what I use that belongs to others. I pledge to value the process of learning in addition to the outcome, while celebrating and learning from mistakes. This code encompasses all of the academic and scholarly endeavors of the university community.”
Art Markman, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, said he hopes the changes in the honor code will help prevent an “arms race” between faculty and students. He said he is hoping the University utilizes A.I. tools moving forward.
“We’re really trying to work with faculty to focus more on ways of incorporating generative A.I. tools … into teaching and how to communicate clearly about expectations,” Markman said.
Markman said he also recognized some students may feel tempted to use A.I. when given seemingly purposeless assignments and emphasized the importance of the faculty fully explaining the purpose of the work they assign. However, he said the effort put into any assignment is always worthwhile.
“If you wanted to learn to shoot free throws better on a basketball court, you wouldn’t have somebody else go and shoot those free throws for you because, at the end of the day, you’ve learned to do it,” Markman said. “There’s a lot of assignments in classes that are designed to teach skills, and having someone or some other thing do that assignment for you doesn’t enable you to learn those skills.”
