Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing higher education in the areas of business operations, research, teaching, and learning. Chancellor, Jeremy Haefner has formed an AI steering committee to think through the implementation and impact of artificial intelligence here at DU. The committee has been looking at the implications of AI for teaching and learning, research, and business operations in particular, and the formation of a task force in each discipline.
This is being jointly led by Mary Clark, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, and Russell Kaurloto, CIO and VC of Information Technology, working with Deans Vivek Choudhury (Daniels College of Business), Michael McGuire (College of Professional Studies), and Michelle Sabick (Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science) and Deputy Chief Information Officer Rohini Ananthakrishnan.
To ensure that AI is implemented effectively, the AI Steering will undertake the following responsibilities:
1. Establishing AI task forces for business operations, research, teaching, and learning.
2. Reviewing and prioritizing recommendations from the task forces.
3. Identifying funding sources for implementing prioritized recommendations.
4. Establishing teams responsible for implementation of the recommendations.
5. Championing the change management efforts of the recommendations.
6. Fostering a culture of learning and innovation that is critical to the ethical implementation, adoption, and future scaling of AI technologies and guidelines.
7. Implementing structures and guidelines for ongoing support of AI technologies.
AI Task Forces
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Teaching and Learning Task Force
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to change the workplace, eliminating some traditional roles, creating new roles, and transforming how our students will work. AI is emerging as a powerful tool in the areas of teaching and instructional design.
Current compelling uses include:
- improving individualized student instruction and feedback,
- broadening access and inclusivity when paired with universal design principles,
- clearer course organization,
- strengthened assignment and learning outcomes alignment,
- increased classroom and subject matter engagement,
- and preparing students to complete tasks and solve problems in an AI-infused workforce.
The Teaching and Learning task force of the AI steering committee will be responsible for the following:
- Conducting surveys and focus groups within the university community and with employers to identify AI-related knowledge and skills that will be core to the future of work.
- Use information from the surveys and focus groups to generate a list of proposed AI learning outcomes for all students.
- Identifying existing courses or programs that incorporate those learning outcomes or propose new courses, attributes, or content that could be added to key courses.
- Engaging teaching and instructional design expertise from across the university to review promising practices (internal and external) and learnings to help develop guidance for effective adoption and implementation to enhance the DU student and faculty teaching and learning experience.
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Research Task Force
The AI Research task force will be responsible for the following:
- Identifying how best to infuse AI for competitive advantage in our research impact by supporting our faculty and students whose research work relates to AI and whose research work can be benefited by AI tools.
- Articulating a process for developing guidelines and standards for AI use in research and to protect our data from AI threats.
- Recommending structures and guidelines for ongoing support of AI tools for research.
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Business Operations Task Force
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in various functions within higher education business operations, including but not limited to budgeting and forecasting, facilities management, student advising and success, data analysis and decision making, AR/AP management, and risk planning. To ensure the effective implementation of AI in business operations, the business operation task force will be responsible for the following:
- Conducting surveys and focus groups with the university community to identify AI use cases.
- Recommending the acquisition of AI tools or the addition of features to existing software that will meet the needs gleaned from the survey responses and focus groups.
- Providing recommendations to the AI steering committee on policies and guidelines for the acquisition and ethical use of AI tools.
- Developing metrics that will help calculate ROI on implementing AI for business operations.
- Collaborating with other AI task forces for research, teaching, and learning when use cases extend into one or more of those areas.
- Recommending structures and guidelines for ongoing support of AI tools for business operations.
Interested in serving on one of the task forces?
Please email us at AI-Taskforce@DU.edu.
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