The standard
All submitted work must be your own.
Academic dishonesty in this course includes copying answers, sharing quiz questions, submitting AI-generated content as your own, plagiarizing text or images, and using unauthorized references during a proctored exam. The full ARC student conduct policy is the institutional standard. This page is how that standard applies to AI in BIO 304.
What's allowed and what's not
AI is a study tool. It is not a substitute for the work.
Allowed
AI as a study tool
Use AI after you have done your own work to:
- Clarify concepts that didn't click in the reading or video
- Quiz yourself with practice questions
- Organize your own thinking before you write
- Check your reasoning against an explanation you generated
- Generate practice scenarios for your own study
Not allowed
AI as a ghostwriter
Do not use AI to produce:
- Lab workbook drawings
- Discussion posts or replies
- Synthesis answers on lab workbooks
- Clinical portfolio content
- Any quiz answer (Honorlock treats this as a violation automatically)
Why the policy is this strict
Allied health work runs on what's actually in your head.
BIO 304 prepares students for nursing, EMT, paramedic, dental hygiene, respiratory therapy, surgical tech, and mortuary science. In every one of those careers, what you can recall and reason through on the spot is the safety system. There is no AI between you and the patient at 2 a.m. Building the habit of doing your own thinking now is the point of the course.
AI is not bad. AI used to replace the work just deprives you of the practice that builds the recall you will need later.
How AI use is detected
The hand-labeled workbook is the primary mechanism.
AI-generated content has predictable signatures: uniform style, certain phrasing patterns, factual hallucinations that conflict with the textbook, and structures that do not match the prompt. The course design exploits this on purpose.
Handwriting requirement
Lab workbooks are submitted as scanned PDFs of hand-labeled diagrams and handwritten synthesis answers. A digital workbook with no handwriting and no revision history is treated as AI-generated by default.
Style signatures
Uniform sentence rhythm, the same hedging phrases across students, and structures that don't match the actual prompt are all signals. Real student writing has individual fingerprints.
Hallucination checks
When AI invents an anatomical structure or a physiological mechanism that doesn't exist in OpenStax 2e, that's a tell. The textbook is the truth source.
Honorlock on quizzes
Quizzes are proctored. Honorlock treats any AI use during a quiz as a violation automatically. There is no "but I was just looking something up" interpretation.
What happens if the policy is broken
First instance, second instance, course-level consequences.
The escalation follows ARC's student conduct procedures. For specifics, see the official ARC student conduct page linked from the syllabus. In this course, the practical path is:
- First minor violation: zero on the assignment plus a documented conversation with me.
- First major violation, or a repeat: zero on the assignment and referral to the V.P. of Student Services. Documented in your permanent ARC record.
- AI detection above 25% on a graded submission: automatic zero unless AI use was specifically permitted on that assignment.
- AI use on a proctored quiz or exam: Honorlock flags the violation automatically and the assessment receives an F. Course grade may also fall to F.
Transparency goes both ways
How I use AI in this course.
I may use AI to support the design of instructional materials (organizing content, formatting rubrics, drafting clinical case prompts, refining the clarity of explanations) and to organize my grading workflow when identifying class-wide trends. All final content is reviewed and edited by me. No student personally identifiable information is shared with AI systems. Every grading decision reflects my professional judgment and the course rubric. If you have questions about how AI shows up in this course, ask in the Virtual Office Hours forum.