Ithaka S+R is Convening a Two-Year Research Project with Universities “Committed To Making AI Generative For Their Campus Communities”

From an Ithaka S+R Blog Post by Danielle Cooper, Dylan Ruediger, and Roger Schonfeld:

This fall, Ithaka S+R is convening a two-year research project in collaboration with a select group of universities committed to making AI generative for their campus community. Together we will assess the immediate and emerging AI applications most likely to impact teaching, learning, and research activities and explore the needs of institutions, instructors, and scholars as they navigate this environment. We will use our findings to create new strategies, policies, and programs to ensure on-campus readiness to harness the technology in the longer term.

While AI has been an area of research for decades, most university leaders are just beginning to explore how these advancements will impact their mission and their core operations. Now, interest in these technologies has exploded with the high profile announcements from companies leveraging generative AI as an aide in textual communications. One-off examples of universities banning ChatGPT outright, or misusing ChatGPT to craft university-wide communications, obscure the reality of how most universities are currently responding—holding informational events tailored to instructors and drafting or updating university-wide policies. There are also new conversations happening among scholarly communities in parallel, from health scientists to mathematicians to every other discipline in between.

[Clip]

In response to this need, Ithaka S+R is seeking ~15 universities that have the cross-institutional capacity to respond to new developments in generative AI. Each university in the cohort will appoint two to four individuals representing at least two different campus units to serve on their local research team. During the first year, we will comprehensively review the areas of university activity most affected by this emerging technology. The project’s second year will focus on developing institution-specific strategies for each institution in the cohort and updating our collective understanding of cutting edge developments through the landscape review. 

Learn More, Read the Complete Post (625 words)

Filed under: News