On April 30, The Dartmouth learned of a public project posted by chemistry professor Paul Robustelli on the Dartmouth Claude enterprise portal. The project, titled “PS3 Grading,” contained problem sets by 11 different students from Robustelli’s CHEM 76: Physical Chemistry II class, as well as the students’ personal identifying information. It could be accessed by any member of the Dartmouth Claude enterprise group, which is open to all campus community members. The Claude project was taken down by Robustelli on May 2 following The Dartmouth’s request for comment.
Files in the project contained CHEM 76 students’ first names, last names and problem set responses. Some students’ work was marked as “LATE” in file names.
In a statement to The Dartmouth, Robustelli wrote that he has “never used Claude or any AI tool to grade student work” and instead uploaded student problem sets to his PS3 Grading project as part of “one limited test.”
“I ran student assignments through Claude to see if its annotations might someday serve as a reference for manual grading,” Robustelli wrote. “It played no role in any student’s grade, in this course or any other.”
Robustelli also used his Dartmouth Claude enterprise to create a separate public project, titled “Na Emission Lab Code,” which was also taken down.
“I want to teach my students how to perform the analyses in a physical chemistry laboratory [and] build a didactic scaffold of python code … to enable the students to complete the lab assignment with Python instead of Excel,” he wrote in his project instructions to Claude.
Robustelli added that he believed the projects were private.
“As soon as this was brought to my attention, the issue was corrected immediately,” Robustelli wrote in his statement.
The default visibility setting for new projects on Dartmouth Claude enterprise accounts is private. Users opt in to creating a public project by clicking an option labeled “Dartmouth: Everyone in your organization can view and use this project.”
The College first announced its AI partnership with Anthropic in December. In a campus-wide email from the Information, Technology and Consulting office sent on March 30, the College announced that all campus community members would have free access to Claude for Education, which combines premium chat features with the ability to collaborate in projects across the Dartmouth enterprise group.
College spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote in a statement to The Dartmouth that the College is “reinforcing guidance around project visibility settings” as part of its “ongoing support” to community members in the use of Dartmouth Claude.
“Dartmouth offers training and support through ITC, DCAL [Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning] and the Libraries to help faculty, staff and students use these tools effectively and securely,” Barnello wrote.
Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
CHEM 76 student Timothy Bonis ’26 said he felt Robustelli’s use of AI was “incongruous” with his “anti-AI posture.”
“[Robustelli’s] word has been, as we agreed in the first class, that we will not use AI in the problem sets and we will not use AI in the labs,” he said.
A copy of the CHEM 76 course syllabus obtained and reviewed by The Dartmouth includes an “expectation that problem set solutions will not be obtained from generative AI.”
“All work that is submitted to be graded must be your own,” the syllabus states.
Bonis added that he believes there should be “reasonably definitive standards” for faculty AI use within departments and that AI-generated course materials are “unlikely to be pedagogically effective.”
Chemistry department chair Ekaterina Pletneva did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication. There is no policy on faculty AI use listed on the department’s website as of the time of publication.
“Faculty decide when and how to use AI in teaching and learning,” Barnello wrote.
Another CHEM 76 student, who wished to remain anonymous, wrote in a statement that they do not believe Robustelli’s grading method is “unfair or inaccurate.”
“He certainly goes through and checks manually as he gives us specific feedback and marks up our homework,” the student wrote.
“I am committed to using these tools responsibly and with full transparency,” Robustelli wrote. “I will be speaking directly with my students about this, and I take seriously my responsibility to maintain their trust.”
Alex Klee '29 is a reporter from Woodbridge, Conn. He plans to major in economics and minor in math. He enjoys live music, skating and climbing.
