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Artificial intelligence in education: what issues do we need to start considering now?

Michael Webb
by
Michael Webb

New Jisc report highlights successes and provides insight into upcoming developments.

Students study together in a library with a robot.

It’s clear that artificial intelligence (AI) is already adding value in the education sector.  

However, adopting AI can be a daunting challenge for institutions lacking the time, expertise and resources to explore its many uses.  

With this in mind, Jisc’s new report on AI in tertiary education aims to help speed the adoption of AI by highlighting real-life examples where the technology is demonstrably saving time for staff and improving life for students. It also explores the future of AI, and what we can expect as the technology matures. 

So, while today’s teachers may well be marking certain subjects with AI and learners may be using it to find out when their next assignment is due, how will AI be helping them in the future? And what issues do we need to start considering now? 

AI will never replace teaching staff 

The first thing to emphasise is that AI will never replace teaching staff – nor would we want it to. But it will allow them to spend more time connecting with their students, whether that’s in person or virtually.

With a reduction in their workload, educators’ time can be freed up to concentrate on higher-impact tasks, leading to better outcomes and a more fulfilling, effective experience for learners. 

With a reduction in their workload, educators’ time can be freed up to concentrate on higher-impact tasks, leading to better outcomes and a more fulfilling, effective experience for learners. 

AI can provide personalised experiences 

We see this in our daily lives, and we are already seeing students benefit from this in areas such as adaptive learning tools.  The challenge for the next few years is to work out exactly how to continue to harness this capability to provide most benefit.   

Digital assistants or chatbots, such as the one Jisc is currently piloting with a number of colleges and universities, support students and staff alike. Jisc’s “deep dive” sessions with organisations across the sector have highlighted the opportunity for extending the use of AI to support the student from application all the way through to graduation. Enrolment and induction for students can often be manual, complicated and take a long time to complete successfully.   

Having a smooth and clear journey will help support students and prevent early dropouts. 

AI will make learning more inclusive and accessible 

AI will also make learning more inclusive and accessible for those with language barriers or disabilities. We will increasingly be able to use AI to provide access to learning in a format that is personalised and formatted according to the needs of the learner – for example, the same content could be provided as audio, video or text, all communicated at the right level.   

AI is allowing the creation of tools like virtual assistants that provide additional guidance and support to students with specific needs. 

AI is allowing the creation of tools like virtual assistants that provide additional guidance and support to students with specific needs. 

AI assistants that provide support to students at any time of the day show great promise, as does using AI to tailor students’ learning journey - although we need to make sure this kind of development involves all stakeholders, and isn’t technology driven.   

There are questions to ask, though: for example, around how we balance the concept of personalising learning materials and maintaining or enhancing learner agency. 

Using data to drive the right outcomes 

Advances in AI, along with an increase in available data, provide new opportunities in areas such as learning analytics solutions which provide indications of students at risk of failure or dropping out.  Currently, acting on outputs of predictive models is a challenge, as these have very much been ‘black box’ technologies – we can see that a conclusion has been reached by an AI model, but not why. We are now seeing advances in AI explainability, which means much greater insight into the factors affecting any particular situation.  

The value of being able to draw insights from this means that improving data and analytics will continue to be top of the list for colleges and universities.  

Advice on ethical use of AI 

Tools and techniques are emerging that provide particular ethical challenges. For example, there are a number of AI techniques that aim to understand human emotion, and organisations may want to start thinking and talking about what place (if any) these kinds of tools have in education.  

For example, AI systems can be trained to detect emotion in human expressions and speech, and it is likely that these kinds of tools will be built into video conferencing solutions in the future. AI could be used to identify the sentiment and emotional dimension of student communications from survey results, social media channels, forums and student group work. This data could then be used to ascertain performance and identify areas for improvement - a task that is often undertaken manually at the moment.  

Should we do this, though?  

Jisc’s pathways to responsible, ethical AI report (pdf) provides tools to help institutions start to consider these sorts of questions. 

Be prepared 

We need to start preparing our systems and data now to support integration and allow development of more of these kinds of systems in the future. Jisc is uniquely placed to work together with the education sector to enable institutions to plan how they will use AI efficiently, effectively and ethically.  

We hope that this new report provides the context and ideas for colleges and universities to explore this further.

We hope that this new report provides the context and ideas for colleges and universities to explore this further.  

To find out more, take a look at Jisc’s latest report on AI in tertiary education (pdf)

About the author

Michael Webb
Michael Webb
Director of technology and analytics

I lead Jisc's national centre for AI in tertiary education. We support the responsible and effective adoption of artificial intelligence across the tertiary education sector, through a range of pilots, advice, guidance, and community support activities.