The University of Victoria’s Digital Scholarship Commons guides the university towards responsible AI integration
Photo by Annilea Purser
On April 4, 2024, UVic’s Digital Scholarship Commons launched a new workshop for students, faculty, and instructors titled “Using Generative AI for Student Research.” The workshop aims to educate students on how to use Generative AI (GenAI) tools and discusses the university’s AI use strategy.
The GenAI Workshop was developed by a team of librarians, including Christian Schmidt, Special Projects Librarian at the University of Victoria, and Rich McCue, Director of the Digital Scholarship Commons.
The workshop, hosted online, is available to all undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty and instructors. It has 12 main learning objectives, including: developing an understanding of GenAI and its ethical considerations, what strategies researchers can undertake to use GenAI in the context of ethical and safety concerns, how to assess the reliability of results, what UVic policies are and how to leverage library resources.
McCue notes that skills learned in the workshop should only be applied when an instructor allows it.
“This is an important caveat that we emphasize repeatedly during the workshop, because we don’t want to help students get into trouble because a particular professor doesn’t allow generative AI for doing a literature review, for example,” McCue said.
According to McCue, his motivation for developing the workshop came from what he witnessed as an instructor. While teaching EDCI 336 (Technological Innovation in Education), McCue noticed that his students – who are future teachers – were interested in using GenAI in their schoolwork while also being aware of how which they could handle in their future classes.
“I could see the students thinking, oh, this can be really helpful for me and my homework. And then a few minutes later, they would say, oh, but I’m going to have a class full of high school or middle school students who will have access to this. How will I manage this while still meeting the learning objectives? » McCue said.
The workshop is part of UVic’s position on the use of AI published in December 2023. Rather than outright banning the use of GenAI, UVic has adopted the ethical use of GenAI tools (GAIT). According to the position statement, GAITs offer new ways of learning and teaching, and understanding them will be important for students entering the workforce.
McCue notes that some faculty have begun to encourage the use of GenAI to prepare students for their careers.
“From what I’ve heard and observed, business professors are really trying to encourage instructors to use generative AI where appropriate, simply because their people will see this in business when they graduate,” said McCue said.
UVic has further expressed its commitment to helping faculty and instructors use GenAI in the classroom, including a list of tips for promoting academic integrity among students who choose to use GAITs.
Dr. Michael Ziegler, a lecturer at MacEwan University who recently defended his thesis on the positive and negative effects of AI on society, emphasizes the importance of strong pedagogical approaches for professors wishing to integrate work where students can use GAITs.
“This can’t be due to chance,” Ziegler said. “We must adopt it in terms of pedagogy. In other words, it must make sense in the classroom. Like, why are you doing this? Is this useful for the mission in terms of learning AI? Is this helpful for the assignment in terms of thinking that it can help students in some way? »
Ziegler warns that instructors who only incorporate GenAI assignments as a tactic to deter students from cheating — such as requiring students to submit ChatGPT’s answer to their assignment prompt — may cause a culture of distrust in the classroom.
“You start the semester with a lack of respect for students and their ability to work,” Ziegler said. “So it has no educational value and has no place in the classroom in my opinion. »
Ziegler noted that the use of GenAI comes with many ethical concerns, including replicating GAIT bias, land use, ecological impacts, data collection and security practices, and much more.
“All (ethical factors) need to be considered and just add to the argument that we can’t just use it for the sake of using it, there has to be some value. Otherwise, you’re just sort of engaged in this circular reality of committing evil and doing evil again in various ways,” Ziegler said.
McCue says the library workshop can help individuals understand ethical concerns related to when using GenAI is appropriate.
The workshop is currently being expanded and other GenAI courses are gradually being released, including one that focuses specifically on engineering GAIT prompts. The next workshop “Using Generative AI for Student Research” will take place in June.
