Guidance and Principles – Teach Anywhere

AI is reshaping the way we teach, learn, and work, offering new possibilities while also raising concerns about privacy, bias, and its role in education. Striking a balance between AI and human judgment is essential. The principles and guidelines on this site provide a framework for ethically and effectively integrating AI into teaching and learning at NIC, addressing potential risks. This site will be regularly updated to reflect advancements in AI, evolving best practices, and compliance with emerging regulations and government directives. The resources below support faculty, staff, and students in navigating AI responsibly.

Alignment with NIC Values and Initiatives

How we use AI in teaching and learning should align with NIC’s strategic plan initiatives, as well as existing NIC policies, procedures and legal requirements.

Build 2026 – 2.1 Teaching and Learning: Our pursuit of excellence drives us to discover how AI can be utilized creatively and adaptively to transform teaching and learning. At the heart of this work lies our commitment to preserving human values and fostering critical thinking.
Build 2026 – 7.1 Reconciliation & 7.2 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: By prioritizing decolonization, inclusivity, and accessibility, we must carefully assess how these tools could reinforce biases or misappropriate cultures. At the same time, we explore their ability to enhance equitable access, inclusiveness, and universally designed learning experiences.
Build 2026 – 8.1 Climate and Sustainability: In serving our communities, we must confront the environmental footprint of GenAI technologies. Our focus is on ensuring their use and development align with sustainable practices that honor our connection to the planet and all living things.

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Conduct

AI is a technology tool that can be useful in learning and teaching at NIC and beyond, provided it is used appropriately within the context of individual courses and assignments. Faculty need to make decisions about whether, and to what extent, they adopt and/or allow the use of technology tools in their teaching practice. This includes AI tools, provided that use aligns with NIC’s policy on Community Code of Academic, Personal and Professional Conduct (Policy 3-06), Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (Policy 1-01), and Research Involving Humans (Policy 1-21). More information on AI use in learning, teaching and assessment practices is available on the Teach Anywhere website.

AI is an evolving technology with unanswered questions about its reliability, accuracy, and best use. There are also very significant ethical concerns about the ways in which AI may perpetuate existing biases that reinforce systemic inequities or may present new challenges and barriers to decolonization, accessibility, and equity and antiracism goals. NIC encourages use within the boundaries of ethical and responsible conduct.

The principles below provide direction for the NIC community on using AI ethically and responsibly while mitigating risks. These principles will be regularly revisited, assessed, and maintained to ensure compliance with current and emerging regulatory standards and government advice, as well as emergent knowledge about the implications and impacts on marginalized communities. 

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Guiding Principles

Understanding and Remaining Current with AI

Prior to using AI, take steps to learn about the tool’s strengths and limitations. Read all terms of use to understand privacy, security, and copyright implications. AI is a rapidly evolving field, so if using these tools regularly, make sure you stay up to date on the latest advancements, use cases, and best practices in AI to harness its potential to the fullest. When in doubt, do not hesitate to ask for help or further clarification on the use of AI. We are all learning, and open dialogue will ensure we utilize the innovation of AI in a balanced and responsible manner.

AI literacy
NIC will continue to provide opportunities to learn about capabilities and limitations of AI tools. Faculty, staff, and students should use those opportunities to develop basic AI literacy skills over time.

Appropriate and Responsible Use

Faculty use of AI: Faculty may choose to use AI for teaching and learning related work within the bounds of legal, college, or department-level policies and guidelines, and the guidelines below. AI’s impact is context specific in considering disciplines/industries, how learning outcomes may evolve, and how learning activities and assessments might change to better prepare students for future skills.

Student use of AI: Students may choose to use AI in academic course work within the directions set by the instructors in their programs or courses. They may choose to use AI to support their learning in other ways, within the bounds of legal and college policies and requirements and guidelines below.

Accountability for Results

Ensuring the accuracy and appropriateness of AI results is the responsibility of the user. While AI can aid in generating content, the final communication should be reviewed for accuracy and remain in keeping with any relevant or applicable NIC policies and guidelines. Remember to attribute sources when appropriate.

Ownership of Original Generated Content

AI tools may have varying policies on ownership and licensing of generated content. Some tools might grant you full ownership, while others may retain certain rights. Before using an AI tool, read the terms of use and fully understand how material that has been generated can be used for personal or enterprise use. Where necessary, ensure the appropriate license is purchased with approval as required.

Copyright Infringement Risk Mitigation

Models may be trained on intellectual assets that are copyrighted and so may inadvertently generate content that infringes upon existing intellectual property rights. Though AI tools seem to be providing original responses, they may be quoting near directly from sources in their training set. Using or reproducing copyrighted outputs without a license presents a legal risk. Mitigation strategies include using proper attribution, checking for originality, or using copyright-compliant tools. Likewise, your own intellectual property may be compromised or used without your permission if entered into a tool. For example, entering your original writing into the tool may result in the tool using your writing as an original response for another user.

Plagiarism Risk Mitigation

Plagiarism, an academic risk as opposed to legal risk, refers to the act of presenting someone else’s work or ideas as one’s own without proper attribution, regardless of whether the content is protected by copyright. It is recommended to adhere to NIC Library’s guidance for citing AI use. Use citation/quotation practices as you would if you were referring to any online resource. Also consider searching for phrases from generated results to try to identify and credit original sources. If imagery has been created or modified using AI, it can be credited in much the same way as photo credits, for example, “Photo illustration: [insert name of tool/NIC]”.

Confidentiality of NIC Data

Do not enter any content into an AI tool that has not been assessed for privacy impact or that you would not be able to place publicly on the internet for free use. This includes any content that is not intended for public release (e.g., research results before they are published), or content that was created by others including students (e.g., written student assignment submissions). Entering confidential content into an AI tool may expose that content to third parties who are not authorized to see or use it.

Privacy Risk Mitigation

Do not enter personal information into any AI tool that has not been through NIC’s FIPPA compliance assessment, to do so may be a breach of privacy. Personal information includes names, contact information, student numbers, academic history, etc. The guidance for personal information with respect to AI tools is the same as for any other toolset that has not undergone a privacy impact assessment.

Mitigating the Risk of Reproducing Cultural Bias and Systemic Inequities

Results produced by AI reflect society’s gender, culture, and other biases present on the internet. Overreliance on generated output may result in inappropriate differential treatment and serious consequences for groups of individuals and/or their human rights. A careful review of any results produced by AI for bias is necessary before use.

Mitigating the Risk of Incorrectness

Due to the statistical approach, AI tools may return results that are believable but are incorrect. Users should double check all results returned by AI tools for correctness. Similarly, if using AI tools to produce code, be sure to review the code carefully against your own tests, and test the code in a safe, quarantined environment, in case it invokes behaviours with unintended or problematic consequences.

Mitigating Ecological Impacts

NIC is committed to sustainability. At time of writing these guidelines, AI tools use significant amounts of electricity. Users should consider choosing solutions and/or vendors that limit and/or reduce power consumption and leverage high-quality renewable energy to mitigate the impact on sustainability goals. One example might be considering how many versions you require to be created when you use AI. Another example might be fulsomely writing your prompt or request of an AI tool initially to prevent multiple rewrites.

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Highlights and Key Points

Directions for Teaching and Learning