Generative AI in Higher Education: Seeing ChatGPT Through Universities' Policies, Resources, and Guidelines

The advancements in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) technologies such as ChatGPT provide opportunities to enrich educational experiences, but also raise concerns about academic integrity if misused. This study aims to explore how universities and educators respond and adapt to the development of GenAI in their academic contexts by analyzing academic policies and guidelines established by top-ranked US universities regarding the use of ChatGPT in higher education. The data sources include academic policies, statements, guidelines as well as relevant resources provided by the top 100 universities in the US. Results show that the majority of these universities adopt an open but cautious approach towards the integration of GenAI. Primary concerns lie in ethical usage, accuracy, and data privacy. Most universities actively respond and provide diverse types of resources, such as syllabus templates/samples, workshops, shared articles, and one-on-one consultations, with topics focusing on general technical introduction, ethical concerns, pedagogical applications, preventive strategies, data privacy, limitations, and detective tools. The findings provide two suggestions for educators in policy-making: establish discipline-specific policies, and manage sensitive information carefully, as well as four implications for educators in teaching practices: accept its presence, align its use with learning objectives, evolve curriculum to prevent misuse, and adopt multifaceted evaluation strategies rather than relying on AI detectors.