Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Colleges and Universities Weave AI Into Lesson Plans - PYMNTS

Miami Dade’s investment is notable for its addition to the institution’s curriculum, but it pales in comparison to other colleges and universities. For example, New York State’s University at Albany system’s $200 million “AI Plus” initiative is researching and embedding the technology in courses from philosophy to weather prediction. Indiana University has poured a $60 million donation into a dedicated AI research center and even Chat GPT is embracing legitimate relationships with higher education. It announced last week that it will be what it says is the first collaboration OpenAI and a major university, in this case Arizona State. The collaboration will formalize the use of ChatGPT Enterprise to the university, “empowering” faculty and staff to explore generative AI to enhance teaching and research without compromising privacy and security.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Microcredentials on the Rise, but Not at Colleges -- Kathryn Palmer, Inside Higher Ed

 A new survey found training partnerships between employers and four-year colleges fell between 2022 and 2023 while instruction provided by third-party providers rose.  As the pool of traditional-age students shrinks, colleges are increasingly turning to nondegree credentials to expand the appeal of their academic offerings to working adults. At the same time, an increasing number of employers want their employees to be able to upskill and reskill through microcredential programs. But four-year institutions are lagging behind third-party providers, such as LinkedIn Learning and Coursera, in their efforts to create employer partnerships, according to a new report released Tuesday by Collegis Education, an online program support company, and UPCEA, the organization previously known as the University Professional and Continuing Education Association.

Monday, January 29, 2024

Colleges and Universities Weave AI Into Lesson Plans - PYMNTS

Miami Dade’s investment is notable for its addition to the institution’s curriculum, but it pales in comparison to other colleges and universities. For example, New York State’s University at Albany system’s $200 million “AI Plus” initiative is researching and embedding the technology in courses from philosophy to weather prediction. Indiana University has poured a $60 million donation into a dedicated AI research center and even Chat GPT is embracing legitimate relationships with higher education. It announced last week that it will be what it says is the first collaboration OpenAI and a major university, in this case Arizona State. The collaboration will formalize the use of ChatGPT Enterprise to the university, “empowering” faculty and staff to explore generative AI to enhance teaching and research without compromising privacy and security.

Sunday, January 28, 2024

Increase Your Students’ Engagement In Online Courses: Smart Tips - Al Woods, Flux

 As we continue to navigate the digital age, online education emerges as an essential aspect of the learning landscape. However, maintaining student engagement can prove challenging in an online environment. In this guide, we will explore smart and effective tips to enhance student involvement and participation in online courses. From leveraging interactive tools to fostering a community-driven learning ecosystem, we’ll provide you with the key strategies to elevate your online teaching experience.


Saturday, January 27, 2024

ASU's collaboration with OpenAI charts the future of AI in higher education - Queen Creek Sun Times

 Arizona State University will be the first higher education institution to collaborate with OpenAI, the AI research and deployment company behind ChatGPT.PreviousNextArizona State University will be the first higher education institution to collaborate with OpenAI, the AI research and deployment company behind ChatGPT. This collaborative effort introduces the advanced capabilities of ChatGPT Enterprise to the university, empowering faculty and staff to explore the potential of generative AI to enhance teaching, learning and discovery, while also ensuring increased levels of privacy and security. 


Friday, January 26, 2024

OpenAI announces first partnership with a university - Heyden Field, CNBC

OpenAI on Thursday announced its first partnership with a higher education institution. Starting in February, Arizona State University will have full access to ChatGPT Enterprise and plans to use it for coursework, tutoring, research and more. The partnership has been in the works for at least six months. ASU plans to build a personalized AI tutor for students, allow students to create AI avatars for study help and broaden the university’s prompt engineering course.

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Character.ai: Young people turning to AI therapist bots - Joe Tidy, BBC

And one bot, called Psychologist has been notably popular. A total of 78 million messages, including 18 million since November, have been shared with the bot since it was created by a user called Blazeman98 just over a year ago. Character.ai did not say how many individual users that is for the bot, but says 3.5 million people visit the overall site daily. The bot has been described as "someone who helps with life difficulties". The San Francisco Bay area firm played down its popularity, arguing that users are more interested in role-playing for entertainment. The most popular bots are anime or computer game characters like Raiden Shogun, which has been sent 282 million messages.

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

AI to hit 40% of jobs and worsen inequality, IMF says - Annabelle Liang, BBC

Artificial intelligence is set to affect nearly 40% of all jobs, according to a new analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). IMF's managing director Kristalina Georgieva says "in most scenarios, AI will likely worsen overall inequality". Ms Georgieva adds that policymakers should address the "troubling trend" to "prevent the technology from further stoking social tensions". The proliferation of AI has put its benefits and risks under the spotlight. The IMF said AI is likely to affect a greater proportion of jobs - put at around 60% - in advanced economies. In half of these instances, workers can expect to benefit from the integration of AI, which will enhance their productivity.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

More than an OpenAI Wrapper: Perplexity Pivots to Open Source - Richard Macmanus, the New Stack

The AI search engine Perplexity has been getting a lot of buzz recently as an alternative to ChatGPT. Unlike ChatGPT, Perplexity provides citations by default for the information it delivers. That single feature has become crucial in generative AI, given the ongoing hallucination issue with this technology. Accordingly, Perplexity has become a surprisingly strong player in a market otherwise dominated by OpenAI, Microsoft, Google and Meta.

https://thenewstack.io/more-than-an-openai-wrapper-perplexity-pivots-to-open-source/

Monday, January 22, 2024

Public universities seek new ways to restructure humanities - Elaine S Povich, University World News

The universities aim to continue teaching the humanities while also reducing costs and focusing on students getting jobs after graduation. For some universities, that means integrating the humanities into science or technology majors. For others, it means offering online humanities courses to students spread out on multiple campuses. But the changes have sparked protests from some students and faculty who say the cutbacks will harm the quality of the courses and reduce the number of professors.

Sunday, January 21, 2024

Is grad school worth the investment? Our exclusive data shows some surprising answers - Alia Wong, USA TODAY

But roughly a third of the survey’s participants said they hadn’t fulfilled those objectives: 30% of recent completers have not been consistently employed in the field they studied, and 35% earn less than they had expected. “These two measures – career advancement and higher income – are where we see the largest gaps between what recent graduates are hoping to get out of their grad school experience vs. how well their school actually delivered for them,” the researchers note in a slide deck shared with USA TODAY. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2024/01/11/student-loan-debt-grad-school-jobs/72166592007/

Saturday, January 20, 2024

Public Higher Ed and the Real Value of Arts and Humanities -Jeremy C. Young and Jacqueline Allain, Governing

In a time of disinvestment and other budget pressures, these programs are too often the first to be cut. But they are where students learn to have difficult conversations in an atmosphere of free inquiry and expression. Across the country, arts and humanities programs are being axed in a misguided attempt to balance public university budgets. From New York and North Carolina to North Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin, we are seeing academic departments, degrees and faculty reduced or eliminated. That’s bad for the diversity of ideas that is a prerequisite for an environment of free inquiry on campus, and it’s a blow to the rich intellectual traditions that help us understand how humans relate to each other, tell stories, remember histories and make sense of our lives and our collective futures.

Friday, January 19, 2024

You thought 2023 was a big year for AI? Buckle up. AI will change the world this year. We just don’t know how yet. - Adam Clark Estes, Vox

If your job involves a computer, chances are you’ve already noticed some changes. You now have a whole host of AI-powered chatbots, like Microsoft’s Copilot digital assistant, which can help you summarize meeting notes or build a presentation. Your boss loves this AI assistant concept because it’s designed to help you do more work in less time, and you might like it simply because it makes your job easier. Either way, with billions of dollars of investor dollars pouring into AI companies, we can all expect to encounter these tools more often this year. “I expect mass adoption by companies that will start delivering some of the productivity benefits that we’ve been hoping for for a long time,” Erik Brynjolfsson, economist and director of Stanford Digital Economy Lab, wrote in a list of 2024 predictions. “If we embrace it, it should be making our jobs better and allow us to do new things we couldn’t have done before.”

Thursday, January 18, 2024

Anthropic researchers find that AI models can be trained to deceive - Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch

Now, the results aren’t necessarily cause for alarm. Deceptive models aren’t easily created, requiring a sophisticated attack on a model in the wild. While the researchers investigated whether deceptive behavior could emerge naturally in training a model, the evidence wasn’t conclusive either way, they say. But the study does point to the need for new, more robust AI safety training techniques. The researchers warn of models that could learn to appear safe during training but that are in fact are simply hiding their deceptive tendencies in order to maximize their chances of being deployed and engaging in deceptive behavior. Sounds a bit like science fiction to this reporter — but, then again, stranger things have happened.

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

How to Approach Student AI Use Policies in Higher Education - Husch Blackwell, JD Supra

Recognizing the likely permanence of AI, colleges, universities, and schools are grappling with the need for clear guidelines for students on the use of AI in the academic context, leading to the creation of AI use policies, procedures, or guidelines (collectively, AI Use Policies or AUPs). Given the novelty of generative AI, there is no tested formula for these educational institution policies. Drawing on our experience in the education industry, we have identified the following topics for consideration when drafting student-facing AUPs.

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

New Research: UPCEA Reveals Key Findings on Alternative Credentials - UPCEA

UPCEA, the online and professional education association, is proud to share findings and takeaways from a new research study, Alternative Credentials: Business and Program Models. The research, supported by a grant from Walmart, is part of UPCEA’s “Building Capacity, Expanding Pathways: Accelerating the Growth of Credential Innovation in Higher Education” project. The project aims to accelerate the development and delivery by colleges and universities of noncredit, short-term credentials for and with local, regional, or statewide businesses. The study reveals a widespread embrace of alternative credentials among institutions, ranging from non-credit certificates to massive open online courses (MOOCs), particularly within UPCEA's membership, which is predominantly focused on online and professional continuing education. Despite the acceptance of alternative credentials, a notable finding is that a significant number of institutions do not yet view them as a strategic priority. 

Monday, January 15, 2024

Navigating the AI revolution in higher education: a call to action - Yike Guo, HEPI UK

Let’s not forget, the roles that AI cannot fulfil – ethical reasoning, emotional intelligence, and the intrinsic values of goodness and compassion that define our humanity. As we venture into this new era, these are the anchors that will maintain our course, ensuring that our graduates are not just proficient in the language of algorithms but are also the moral compasses of a technologically advanced society. The race isn’t for the preservation of old methodologies but for the pioneering of new ones. The true measure of our success with AI-augmented education will not be the seamless integration of technology alone but our ability to instil in our students the confidence to challenge, the wisdom to discern, and the courage to humanise the digital frontier. It is here, in the confluence of machine precision and human insight, that the future of higher education will be written.

Sunday, January 14, 2024

10 Disruptive Trends for Higher Education 2024 - Sanjay Sharma, Times of India

Explore the transformative landscape of higher education in 2024 with these 10 disruptive trends. from the surge in micro-credentials to the rising prominence of apprenticeships, witness the evolution reshaping learning approaches, employment paradigms, and student well-being.  In response to the changing job landscape, more learners are opting for shorter, targeted education options known as micro-credentials. These focused and specialized programs provide practical skills, making them attractive to both students and employers. 


Saturday, January 13, 2024

4 Disruptive Trends For Higher Ed In 2024 - Michael B. Horn, Forbes

To state the obvious, 2023 was a tumultuous year in higher education. But critical questions around academic freedom, free speech, ideological diversity and more aren’t the only things driving turbulence in the sector. More instability is in store in the year ahead. As the new year dawns, here are four other trends that could change the status quo in 2024.


Friday, January 12, 2024

Top Tech News: ChatGPT Rules AI, Captures 60% of Traffic - Harshini, Analytics Insight

The top 50 artificial intelligence (AI) products had over 24 billion visits between September 2022 and August 2023, according to a recent survey, with OpenAI’s chatbotChatGPT generating 60% of the industry traffic. This translates to a rise of 236.3 million visitors on a monthly average. According to research by Sujan Sarkar of writerbuddy.ai, of this enormous amount, ChatGPT alone accounted for 14 billion traffic, or 60% of the traffic examined. Online applications are being accepted from interested and qualified applicants for the job of Junior Assistant for the Admissions Office at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Lucknow Noida Campus. 

https://www.analyticsinsight.net/top-tech-news-chatgpt-rules-ai-captures-60-of-traffic/

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Google Introducing New AI - VideoPoet: The Future of AI in Multimedia - Tech Updates, AI Revolution

VideoPoet, Google's new AI technology, excels in generating realistic videos from text, images, or existing videos, using advanced techniques like autoregressive language modeling and tokenizers such as MAGVIT V2 and SoundStream. This tool transforms multimedia content, offering applications in digital art, film production, and interactive media. VideoPoet signifies a major advancement in the field of AI-driven multimedia creation.

https://youtu.be/ps03lsUZXxk?feature=shared

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

5 leadership trends to watch in 2024 - David Rock, Fast Company

Look into 2024, and you see a swathe of uncertainty ahead. Strong emotions on all sides about a federal election. Troubles in the Middle East hitting home in ways not seen before. Pushback against DEI initiatives. All of this occurs against a backdrop of tension between employer and employee about where and how to work, and some of the lowest employee engagement numbers ever. With these issues in mind, here are five leadership trends to watch in 2024. We’ve been polling hundreds of talent executives, and there’s wide agreement that at least 50% of the skills leaders need today are skills they don’t yet have. And the other 50% are skills that were always needed, but are now required at much higher levels. We need new models for leadership that take into account these dynamics.

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

Bill Gates predicts a 'massive technology boom' from AI coming soon - Tiernan Ray, ZDNet

The use of artificial intelligence by the general population in developed countries such as the US to a "significant" degree will start to take place in the next 18 to 24 months, according to Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates in his year-end letter released last week. The impact on things such as productivity and innovation could be unprecedented, says Gates. "Artificial intelligence is about to accelerate the rate of new discoveries at a pace we've never seen before," wrote Gates on his blog. 

Monday, January 8, 2024

Unleashing Potential: The Rise Of The Online Coaching Industry - Leonard Martin Schmedding, Forbes

Online coaching involves personalized and confidential consultations conducted via the Internet, allowing clients to engage with coaches or advisors from the comfort of their homes or while on the go, using a PC or smartphone. As a business consultant for over 1,000 online coaches, I know precisely why coaching is becoming increasingly popular and what makes for a successful coaching career. Let's take a closer look at the online coaching landscape and the reasons behind its growing popularity.

Sunday, January 7, 2024

The Critical Need for AI Literacy: Explore nationwide initiatives to drive AI literacy in classrooms and communities - LILY LEE AND ADITYA SYAM, AIxEducation

Today, we live in an age of rapid technological advancement where we are constantly surrounded by AI systems, from the recommendation algorithms underlying our social media feeds to the virtual assistants on our phones. However, few students truly understand how these systems work or are aware of important considerations surrounding them like potential biases and privacy implications. Integrating AI literacy into the educational curriculum can empower students with knowledge critical to navigating our AI-driven world as informed citizens.

Saturday, January 6, 2024

How (and why) you should create a backup plan for your career - Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company

Innovation and disruption are building a new world, but what if they disrupt your career? Technology—especially AI—is causing some roles to become irrelevant. And even workers in the most stable industries could experience consequences of economic downturns or just poor leadership. To avoid being blindsided, it’s important to have a backup plan that helps you navigate the waters if something happens outside of your control. Here are five things you can do to quickly land on your feet.

Friday, January 5, 2024

How Will AI in Higher Education Disrupt in 2024? - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

GenAI will encourage improved learning outcomes that are accompanied by extensive data and course enhancement recommendations provided to instructors so that they can improve their lectures, assignments, and assessments. All of this will be provided by the apps in the blink of an eye. The apps this year will all become fully multi-modal, that is, they will input text, speech, video and images, and also output in those media with Web pages, analyses, spreadsheets, programs, and more. As Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise famously said “Make it so,” digital designers and instructors around the world will speak, show, or say their prompt to the app, and GenAI will "make it so" in a matter of seconds.

Thursday, January 4, 2024

How to Use NEW Google Gemini Bard (Full Google Gemini AI Tutorial) - theAIGrid

Welcome to our AIGrid channel where we bring you the latest breakthroughs in AI. From deep learning to robotics, we cover it all. Our videos offer valuable insights and perspectives that will expand your knowledge and understanding of this rapidly evolving field. Run time 14:44

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

On the front line of the gen AI (r)evolution - McKinsey

McKinsey’s years of work in artificial intelligence had us well prepared as generative AI dominated the conversation in 2023. Our early estimate is that generative AI (gen AI) could add $4.4 trillion to the global economy annually, with most of the value coming from just a handful of business functions. “The next question,” asked Alex Singla, McKinsey senior partner and global leader of QuantumBlack, AI by McKinsey, “is how will companies take the next step?”

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

OPINION: Why artificial intelligence holds great promise for improving student outcomes - YOLANDA WATSON SPIVA and VISTASP KARBHARI, Hechinger Report

The question now is not whether generative AI can positively transform educational access and attainment, but whether higher education is ready to truly democratize and personalize learning with these tools. AI’s transformational potential is perhaps greatest at community colleges, minority-serving institutions and open-access universities. These schools’ diversity necessitates a broader set of supports. Dedicated faculty and staff not only serve a very broad range of students — including first-generation and low-income learners, returning adults, those for whom English is a second language and those balancing academic pursuits with family and work responsibilities — but they do so with fewer resources than instructors at elite and flagship institutions. Generative AI tools can augment critically needed services such as advisers, tutors and coaches.

Monday, January 1, 2024

AI cannot be patent 'inventor', UK Supreme Court rules in landmark case - Reuters

A U.S. computer scientist on Wednesday lost his bid to register patents over inventions created by his artificial intelligence system in a landmark case in Britain about whether AI can own patent rights. Stephen Thaler wanted to be granted two patents in the UK for inventions he says were devised by his "creativity machine" called DABUS. His attempt to register the patents was refused by the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) on the grounds that the inventor must be a human or a company, rather than a machine.