UNMC AI Use Guidelines

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Policy No.: 8020

Effective Date: 03/07/2025

Revised Date: 06/04/2025

Reviewed Date: 06/04/2025

UNMC AI Use Guidelines

Basis for Policy

Ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) must be paramount in all university activities that seek to develop or enhance AI systems or implement the use of AI technologies.  UNMC is committed to engaging with AI in support of its academic, research, patient care, and community engagement missions. These guidelines seek to balance the new possibilities offered by generative AI and other AI-enabled tools with awareness of their limitations and the need for rigorous attention to accuracy, intellectual property, security, privacy, and ethical issues. The appropriate use of AI and AI-enabled tools requires a collaborative approach among UNMC administrators, faculty, staff, students, information security partners, and NU campus partners.

Scope

This document describes guidelines AI use at UNMC in support of the institution’s academic, research, and patient care missions. All students, faculty, and staff who develop or use AI, including generative AI will follow these guidelines, which are enforced through the UNMC Code of Conduct, Student Code of Conduct, and Research Integrity Policy. These guidelines are largely focused on the use of generative AI tools. Generative AI is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to produce text, images, videos, or other forms of data.

Guidelines

1. Per Executive Memorandum No. 42, Policy on Risk Classification and Minimum Security Standards, only public or Low Risk Data may be used with AI tools—unless a legal enterprise agreement and confidentiality agreement have been established with the third party and the required assessment process has been completed, or the tool is listed on the UNMC Approved Technology List.

2. Be mindful of including sensitive information in AI tools. External generative AI tools incorporate every user interaction into their model, including the prompts, data, and reactions you supply.  Any information entered into external generative AI tools is considered public and may be stored and used by anyone else. UNMC employees and students are expected to:

3. All UNMC users are accountable for their academic or professional work, regardless of the tools used to produce it. When using generative AI tools, users should always verify the information produced for errors and biases and exercise caution to avoid copyright infringement.

  • Generative AI tools may fabricate facts, create fake citations, or disregard or discredit true statements. Users must verify the accuracy of information used from generative AI tools. Since AI-generated material may be included in other materials, users should be prepared to invest extra effort in validating information.
  • Review all generative AI output carefully to guard against introducing unintended bias into work. Generative AI tools can amplify biases present in data used to train large language models. Results can include bias, and users’ interaction with results can reinforce these biases. Be mindful that bias can shape output.
  • Research personnel are accountable for any plagiarized, falsified, or fabricated material that was generated by AI, regardless of funding. The UNMC Research Integrity Policy and federal funding agencies specify the definitions and processes involved if material has been plagiarized, falsified, or fabricated. Federal funding agencies specify the definitions and processes involved if material has been plagiarized, falsified, or fabricated.

4. Employees and students must maintain current awareness of ethical and responsible use of AI in research and creative activities by regularly reviewing university policies and relevant guidelines from funding agencies.

5. Before entering into agreements with vendors, subcontractors, or collaborators, it is important to inquire about any potential use of AI. Any new solution involving AI—or any addition of AI to an existing solution—must go through the risk assessment process, as outlined in UNMC/Nebraska Medicine IM #63: Risk Assessment Policy. To ensure responsible and ethical use of AI in line with these guidelines, additional terms and conditions may be required in current or future agreements.

6.  Federal funding agencies prohibit the use of AI tools during the peer-review process. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), in its discussion of AI peer review, explains that using AI in the peer review process is a breach of confidentiality because peer review is a confidential process and these tools “have no guarantee of where data are being sent, saved, viewed or used in the future.” The National Science Foundation (NSF) shares guidelines for declaring the use of AI in proposals and explicitly prohibits the use of AI in the NSF merit review process.

Use for Education

For Students

In the UNMC curricula, students have opportunities to effectively leverage AI systems while developing a solid grounding in fundamental healthcare knowledge, critical thinking abilities, and strong ethics. AI literacy includes understanding AI's strengths, limitations, underlying principles, and responsible development and usage.

  • Familiarize yourself with your instructors’ expectations regarding the use of AI tools in each course. If it is unclear whether AI tools are allowed in a particular course or for an assignment, review your course syllabus, Canvas course information, or ask your instructors directly. Faculty and instructor expectations will vary from course to course.
  • If you are permitted to use generative AI tools, you may be required to disclose your use and cite the tools you used. Cite AI-generated content word-for-word and describe use and paraphrasing generated by the tool.
  • Entering queries or text into generative AI tools that have not been approved for use at UNMC will expose information publicly online. Treat what you enter in non-approved generative AI tools as if you were posting on a public forum.
  • Maintain academic integrity. Misuse of generative AI will be subject to the same policies and procedures as other academic misconduct.
  • Contact the Division of Student Success for guidance if you have questions about generative AI and the academic misconduct process.

For Faculty and Instructors

UNMC encourages a flexible framework in which faculty and instructors can choose to prohibit, to allow with attribution, or to encourage use of generative AI tools. Faculty and instructors should describe the policy for the course clearly, and where relevant, the use that is permitted for each assignment.

Faculty and instructors can use Generative AI to create course instruction materials. They are not required to disclose its use, but it is recommended to model good practice by doing so.

For Everyone

If you are uncertain about the approval status of a particular AI tool or require guidance on its appropriate use, please refer to the UNMC Approved Technology List. If still uncertain, please reach out to Information Technology Services (ITS) with any questions.

Use for Research

UNMC’s research will explore new generative AI applications to solve healthcare challenges like personalized medicine, drug discovery, epidemic prevention, and chronic disease management. UNMC is committed to developing AI responsibly, ensuring rigorous validation, transparency, privacy protection and alignment with our humanistic values.

The widespread availability of generative AI tools offers new opportunities for creativity and efficiency and, as with any new tool, depends on humans for responsible and ethical deployment in research and society.

When considering using generative AI in a research context, it is essential to investigate how much and what type is permitted. Funding agencies and journal publishers may have particular guidance. At a minimum, when you use generative AI output in scholarly works, disclose and describe how you used it and identify the sections of the work that include generative AI output.

Patient data may not be used within AI tools. Only public or Low Risk Data may be used with AI tools—unless a legal enterprise agreement and confidentiality agreement have been established with the third party and the required assessment process has been completed, or the tool is listed on the UNMC Approved Technology List.


Use for Administration and Other Purposes

UNMC embraces an interdisciplinary, collaborative paradigm that brings clinicians, computer scientists, ethicists, and stakeholders together to maximize the use of generative AI tools. Our generative AI solutions will be human-centered, aiming to reduce burnout and administrative burdens on faculty, staff and students, while elevating premier education, outstanding research, and the highest quality patient care, access, and outcomes. The use of generative AI for administration purposes must comply with the guidelines of the UNMC IT Services.

Additional Information




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