Info for Current Students

The use of generative AI is generally prohibited in undergraduate and graduate History Department courses at UB. History instructors have adopted this policy because we believe that generative AI is incompatible with many of the skills we aim to teach at the undergraduate and graduate level. These skills include critical thinking, research and analysis, sustained reading, written and oral communication and creative problem-solving. As an academic discipline, History is rooted in the original interpretation of primary sources and engagement with ongoing historiographical debates. Historians use archives, oral history, memoirs, letters, censuses, maps and other historical materials to contribute to knowledge about the past. Each step of the process of historical inquiry is important – from posing questions about the past, to engaging in original research, to writing in one’s individual voice, to presenting and debating. We aim to give students opportunities to practice these skills, which are central to their intellectual development. 

The History program’s AI policy for dissertations, theses and capstones upholds the University at Buffalo’s exceptional academic standards and ensures that our undergraduate and graduate students create new knowledge through original research. Requiring students to demonstrate their command of the field reflects the instructor’s commitment to upholding essential standards in the profession; AI cannot replace this research and/or knowledge base. For these reasons, students may not use generative AI tools (including but not limited to ChatGPT, Co-pilot, Gemini, DeepSeek AI, Claude and Grammarly) to create text or other materials presented as their own work. AI translation websites are also prohibited. Students should also not upload course materials (including but not limited to assigned readings, syllabi, PowerPoints and study guides) to AI platforms. If questions arise regarding a student’s intellectual ownership of submitted work, instructors may pursue steps specified in University policies detailed here: UB Academic Integrity Policy and Procedures.

 Individual instructors may create exceptions to this departmental policy listed above in their course syllabi based on specific learning goals (using their own research (upon their advisor’s approval). They will take into account a few general principles: (1) the scope of acceptable AI use should be clearly defined; (2) students should disclose their use of AI with precision, providing transcripts of chats where possible; (3) students should understand which cognitive functions they will “offload” to an artificial assistant and which functions they should be performing themselves; (4) instructors and students should be aware of the potential for AI to deliver inaccurate information and even to “hallucinate” information or material untethered to our shared reality; (5) they should also recognize that information acquired from AI is prone to the same biases characteristic of many other historical sources, amplifying certain perspectives while silencing others. Finally, we understand that AI functions by consuming and incorporating already published research into a system that then produces content which is altered and/or shared without attribution or acknowledgement of intellectual property rights.