AI Student Handbook: A Template for Clear Use Rules

An AI student handbook explains which AI help you may use, what you must disclose, and how to verify your work before submitting it. The most useful version turns school and course rules into a few clear actions you can follow for each assignment. It should help you learn and demonstrate your understanding, rather than simply produce an answer.

fenbs can keep agreed course rules and reusable study instructions available to connected assistants. That record helps you start consistently, but your instructor and the official assignment instructions remain the authority on what is permitted.

Where should you check permission before starting?

Read the school policy, course syllabus, and assignment instructions before opening an AI tool for assessed work. Check both the permitted activity and the approved tool. Permission to use AI for practice questions does not imply permission to generate a paragraph for your submitted essay.

If instructions conflict or leave something unclear, ask the instructor before using AI for that step. Save the answer in the place your school requires. A friend using a tool in another class, or an assistant saying that its help is acceptable, does not settle your assignment rules.

This handbook focuses on conduct and verification. The guide to AI study tools covers the separate question of choosing learning support; choose only among the tools and uses your school permits.

Professional courses need additional boundaries: see the guidance for nursing students or medical students for those distinct learning settings.

What can your handbook say in plain language?

Use the following as a draft to discuss with your teacher or program. Fill in the approved tools, instructor contact, and location of the official policy. Keep any changes dated so you can tell which rules applied when you started the work.

• Learning comes first: I will use AI only for activities my instructor allows. I will still practice the skill the assignment is designed to assess and be able to explain my answer.
• Permission has limits: I will check each assignment separately. If AI is allowed for brainstorming, I will not assume that drafting, translation, coding, image generation, or editing is also allowed.
• My work stays honest: I will identify AI assistance as instructed and distinguish generated material from my own reasoning. I will not submit a fabricated source, quote, data point, or experience.
• Evidence gets checked: I will open the original sources, confirm that they support my claims, and use the required citation style. A convincing answer or formatted reference is not proof.
• People stay private: I will use approved accounts and avoid uploading other people's work, personal details, private messages, or restricted school material without permission.
• Questions go to a person: If I receive unsafe content, make an accidental disclosure, or cannot tell whether an activity is allowed, I will stop that activity and contact the named instructor or school support person.
• I can show the process: I will keep the notes, drafts, calculations, and permitted AI-use records the assignment requires, using the school-approved location and retention instructions.

Add one example from your actual course under each rule. For example, a writing class might permit feedback on your outline while requiring you to draft the essay independently. Concrete examples make the boundary easier to remember when a tool offers to do more.

What should your AI-use disclosure include?

A disclosure explains how assistance affected the work. Include the tool and model if known, the date, the purpose, what you used or rejected, and the checks you performed. Follow your instructor's required format rather than treating this list as a substitute for it.

For a hypothetical permitted brainstorming activity, you could write: I used the approved assistant to suggest possible research questions. I selected one question, narrowed its scope myself, and read the sources listed in my bibliography. I did not use generated prose in the submitted essay. Only use that statement if it accurately describes what happened.

The MLA explanation of substantive AI use↗ (opens in a new tab) distinguishes acknowledging the role of AI from citing a particular source. Your teacher may want both a use statement and formal citations. A note saying that AI helped does not turn a prohibited activity into an allowed one.

Keep private material out of any shareable conversation link. If the assignment requests a transcript, ask how to provide it safely through the approved school channel. Do not publish a conversation containing someone else's details merely to demonstrate your process.

How do you check sources and answers before submitting?

Use an AI answer as something to inspect. The MLA citation guidance↗ (opens in a new tab) recommends consulting the sources linked by an AI response and citing those directly. A real source can still be irrelevant, outdated, or inconsistent with the claim the assistant attached to it.

1. Find the original. Open the article, book passage, dataset, or official page rather than relying on the generated summary or a search snippet.
2. Match the claim. Check that the source actually supports your sentence, including any qualifications, date, location, or population involved.
3. Check the details. Confirm author names, titles, publication information, quotations, page numbers, and links against the source itself.
4. Test the reasoning. Rework a calculation, explain a concept without the chat, or check a code result in the way your course requires.
5. Fix or remove uncertainty. If you cannot verify a claim, leave it out or discuss the uncertainty with your instructor instead of inventing supporting evidence.

Suppose an assistant offers a quotation for a literature assignment, but you cannot find it in the assigned edition. Do not submit it with a plausible page number. Return to the text and build your argument from a passage you can locate and explain.

What if a tool is unavailable or the rules are unclear?

Ask for the approved alternative when you cannot access a required tool or need an accommodation. Do not create an account using a false age or share a classmate's login. For younger students, the FTC COPPA guidance↗ (opens in a new tab) explains privacy requirements affecting certain online services collecting information from children under 13; school staff should resolve the access arrangement.

Use an ordinary learning route while you wait: course readings, your notes, office hours, or the support your instructor provides. Our student helper guide discusses assistance with learning tasks, but no outside guide overrides an assignment restriction.

If your course uses Notion, the Notion AI for students guide covers that separate study workflow.

How can you keep agreed rules available between sessions?

Keep a short record for the course: the official policy link, instructor-approved uses, current assignment limits, and questions still awaiting an answer. Separate settled rules from your guesses. Label the course and assignment clearly so a permission for one project is not reused in another.

An AI brain is an outside record an assistant can read, rather than a promise that a chat remembers everything. With fenbs Decisions and rules, you can retain approved instructions and ask a connected assistant to read them before helping with permitted study work.

How to do this with fenbs

1. Create a free account, subject to your school approval and applicable account requirements. Begin with a course project containing non-sensitive instructions you are allowed to save.
2. Record the rules the instructor actually approved in Decisions and rules. Include their course or assignment scope and keep unanswered questions open.
3. Save a permitted study instruction in Skills and prompts, such as asking for one practice question at a time. Connect an approved AI app using the relevant Integrations guide and ask it to read the course context first.
4. Before stopping, save Where we left off with the topic practiced, what still confuses you, and the next permitted activity. Keep submissions and required evidence in the school-approved system.

fenbs does not determine academic integrity rules, check citations for you, or replace your school learning system. It is not the right fit when school rules prohibit saving course context in an outside service. See the AI governance guides for more on keeping people responsible for AI use.

As you prepare for internships, the same habit carries into using AI at work: check permission, protect information, disclose help where required, and verify what you deliver.