When the Provost’s Generative AI Advisory Committee began meeting in February 2023, the focus revolved around creating strategies to limit students’ use of AI, said committee member and McCormick Prof. Kristian Hammond.
However, since demand for AI literacy has grown, the committee quickly pivoted to focus on ways to become a leader in the AI education space, said Hammond.
“The reality is that this technology is showing up and is real and is going to be used, and so figuring out how to limit it makes no sense,” Hammond said. “If you’re not going to limit, you want to lead.”
The committee tracks developments in generative AI applications and advises University leaders on incorporating AI resources into academic policy and practice.
It was established in response to concerns from around the country about how AI software should be used in teaching and learning, said Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and SESP Prof. Miriam Sherin.
The committee is composed of 18 members, primarily consisting of faculty and staff as well as one undergraduate student.
“When we were figuring out who should be on the committee, we wanted to pick a collection of folks that would represent different areas of the University,” Sherin said. “We wanted an expert in writing represented. We wanted someone from Medill. We wanted someone from the law school. We wanted someone in HR who could talk with us.”
Earlier this fall, the committee collaborated with NU IT Teaching and Learning Technologies to provide free access to ChatGPT 4.0 through Copilot, Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot to students, faculty and staff.
Providing the resource eliminates financial barriers for students unable to afford access to advanced tools like ChatGPT 4.0, said committee member and NU Library’s Lead AI Developer Brendan Quinn.
“What we don’t want to have is a system where the students who have more financial power at their disposal have better AI tools that they can use and get better grades,” Quinn said. “Having a level playing field with Copilot seems like a really good move to me, and it’s something that other universities should join us on, I think.”
Copilot is a safer alternative to other AI platforms because of NU’s data protection contract with Microsoft, which protects students’ data from being used to train AI models.
Sherin said the committee has focused on bringing in national experts on generative AI to host panels and workshops that allow faculty and students to engage in discourse on what using AI in education can look like.
“One of the great benefits of having this Provost level advisory committee is that it demonstrates that the institution is really committed to investing resources, which has enabled us to bring very high profile speakers to campus or to do virtual keynote speakers,” said committee member and Weinberg Prof. Jennifer Keys.
Keys, the senior director of the Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching, said AI tools can help faculty perform time-consuming tasks that they are capable of doing themselves but could be completed more efficiently with the help of AI.
For professors who want to operationalize their assignment with a rubric but don’t have the time, for example, Keys said generative AI tools can be used to design a rubric that effectively assesses student learning.
“The schools have different approaches. Departments have different approaches. The same thing is true here — it’s not like the University was going to create a uniform policy because faculty have academic freedom, and they have different beliefs about how students learn,” Keys said. “I would say the committee tends a little bit more towards being open in the use as opposed to the more restrictive end of the continuum.”
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