Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The purpose of this policy statement is to provide advice and guidance to academic staff associations on collective agreement language and advocacy regarding policy and governance in their institutions in order to address the opportunities and challenges posed by AI to academic work. This policy is not intended to address broader societal implications of the widespread use of AI such as its environmental impacts. The rise in the use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has a range of implications for all academic staff as regards institutional autonomy, institutional transparency, academic freedom, equity, intellectual property, student supervision, collegial governance, privacy, job security, and working conditions. There are opportunities and challenges in implementing AI tools in professional and academic work. Collegial governance structures must allow academic staff and administrators to work together to ensure the responsible and ethical use of AI in ways that are consistent with the academic mission of the post-secondary institution. While this statement applies to all academic staff, it must be borne in mind at all times that AI may have a greater negative impact on contract academic staff due to their vulnerability and the precarious nature of their work.

Post-secondary institutions should only subscribe to or implement AI systems that demonstrate that they have been verified to ensure they do not reproduce or amplify harmful discriminatory views. The institution should ensure that academic staff and students are provided training to make them aware of the ways in which AI can reproduce and amplify harmful biases against categories of people.

The instructor-student relationship is fundamental to the teaching mission of the post-secondary institution, and the work of faculty, librarians, and archivists can never be replaced by AI automation. Considerations and concerns regarding AI tools should be balanced with accessibility requirements that may be met by their use. The employer should not use AI as a means for creating course content or for delivering a course or use AI in any way that results in the loss of employment or reduction of income for contract academic staff, or in the reduction of complement. In addition, a decision not to use AI should not be a cause for non-renewal of the appointment of a contract academic staff member nor should it have a negative impact on the career progression of academic staff.

The post-secondary institution should adopt clear rules and regulations to address academic integrity and student conduct as it relates to the submission of work done with the assistance of AI. The institution should also allocate the necessary resources for assessment of evidence of scholastic offenses so that such duties do not result in an increase in the workload of academic staff without appropriate compensation or workload recognition. Specific measures must be taken to avoid uncompensated increases in contract academic staff workload. The institution should not make more in-class work or assignments obligatory as a means of undermining the misuse of AI technology by students, without the consent of academic staff, including contract academic staff. In circumstances where an academic staff member does consent to assign students such extra work, the work should be remunerated or recognized in the member’s workload. Post-secondary institutions should offer academic staff members, without making it obligatory, free training in AI use and free access to online or app AI services. In addition, academic staff should have adequate technological support for the implementation of AI in their professional and academic work, should they choose to implement it.

The institution must ensure that its IP and copyright policies take into account the implications of AI. The image and voice, and professional and academic works, of an academic staff member should not be reproduced, distributed, or monetized by the institution without the authorization of the academic staff member. No content development contracts for online courses should have a clause granting the university license to use the author’s image and voice beyond the course in question.

There are potential challenges and, in some cases, conflicts when AI is used in graduate or undergraduate research supervision. The institution must communicate clearly to students and academic staff the implications of any use of AI in developing research outcomes such as a thesis, journal articles, etc., and academic integrity. Applicable policies and collective agreement clauses must clearly set out the implications of the use of AI as regards recognition of the intellectual contribution of faculty and student collaborators to the research methodology or outcomes, to ensure compliance with ethics considerations as well as applicable provincial and federal laws, e.g., patent and copyright.

The choice of academic staff to use or not to use AI in research or teaching should be recognized in collective agreements as being a protected academic freedom. Academic freedom should not be impeded through inappropriate application of research misconduct provisions or through restrictions on the appropriate use of AI.

Every post-secondary institution will likely develop its own policies governing AI. However, the institution should involve academic staff, including contract academic staff, in collegial decision making when AI policies are developed or reviewed. Representatives of the academic staff association should be invited to participate in institutional committees that are formed or tasked with the mandate to adopt or review AI policies. These representatives should have a vote in all policy decision-making related to AI. Policies concerning the academic use of AI should be under the purview of senate or equivalent body.

The use of AI for surveillance or monitoring of academic staff should be forbidden. Additionally, the mining of data of academic staff should be restricted, except if consented to by the relevant academic staff association.

Policies governing AI should require transparency at all levels, ensuring AI systems that are used meet criteria of transparency. Institutions should have policies requiring the disclosure of all use of AI, including which tools are used and why.

The post-secondary institution should maintain its autonomy with respect to the AI tools it adopts for use on its campus and should refrain from placing itself in a position of dependence with respect to a single provider of AI tools.

Approved by the CAUT Council November 2025.