According to a 2024 global survey by the Digital Educational Council, 86% of students now enlist the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their studies with approximately 54% utilising it on a weekly basis. Love, loathe or fear it, AI is here to stay and part of the educational infrastructure. It’s up to Academic Staff to make it work for everyone.

When the prospect of students using undetectable Artificial Intelligence to help them produce their assignments first reared its AI image-generated head, I must admit to feeling more than a little conflicted. The ‘old school’ teacher in me was concerned that some students would be able to progress, to graduate even, not through their own efforts.

In being awarded a degree in say, Real Estate, Architecture, Planning, Engineering or Construction; a Graduate is in effect being granted a licence to start down the road to being a practicing professional and to eventually take on the responsibilities that go with these trusted roles. They must know their stuff. 

However, this is a tech-dependent world, and we all use the latest kit to make life’s tasks easier, quicker and more reliable. Academics encourage their students to be flexible, agile thinkers who can utilise and adapt educational and professional resources in creative, imaginative ways. These too are important professional skills so it is surely both inevitable and desirable that students are using AI to good effect. It could also be argued that as long as the internet is available, factual information is now pretty easy to access – it is knowing how to use that intel which is to the difficult part and that it is an understanding of process, not recall of detailed content, that should now be the main purpose of education at University.

One of the main concerns for Academics has been that unlike old-fashioned plagiarism, which can usually be spotted by software such as Turnitin, it is often impossible to identify an AI generated piece of work. But an AI-sourced essay still has to be checked by the author for factual error and/or bias and will almost certainly need editing and alteration, so should it matter where the first draft of the text came from originally?  AI can, though, provide polish, giving a professional sheen to the style of writing which can impress, even dazzle, and so perhaps academics should now be giving less weight to these ‘presentational’ aspects; placing an even greater emphasis on structure, originality of research questions posed, evidence of critical thinking and level of analysis.

In order to combat the use of AI, I have heard of Academics setting very tightly-framed coursework tasks; on built environment courses for example, posing problems which are highly context-based or scenario-specific. They believe that whilst AI is very good at dealing with generalised questions, its use is more limited when confronted with tasks that involve say, measured areas or quantified performance requirements – that Artificial Intelligence doesn’t function as well under those circumstances. Yet!

The consensus on other main AI Weaknesses and Threats appears to include:

• Student over-reliance on this software; leading to a diminution of basic research and problem-solving skills,
• The conscientious human researcher is engaged in a rigorous ‘search for the truth’ – this is not a noted AI strength and can lead to conclusions being presented as factual certainties rather than likelihoods. This could compromise the student’s ability to weigh-up evidence before deciding their own position,
• Accessibility issues: not all students in all regions will have the necessary technology resources or tech skills and literacy to use advanced AI Apps and therefore some will be unfairly disadvantaged.

On the other hand, the Opportunities and Strengths offered by AI are important and exciting and perhaps outweigh the downsides. In addition to the obvious benefits of speed, depth and breadth of information capture, it is claimed that Artificial Intelligence can tailor educational content to an individual’s own learning style, provide links to other study materials and individual feedback as the student progresses. It can also help with translations and support students using voice recognition and text-to-speech software – potentially helpful to disabled learners or those who find conventional teaching pathways challenging.

Controversy concerning the adoption of new technologies in education is nothing new (allowing the use of calculators in the exam room once led to much heated debate!) and now it seems the ball has again awkwardly landed in our virtual court. Academics must of course be sure that students are clear on the limitations and pitfalls of AI but we should now build these tools into our delivery and see them an inevitable part of Coursework projects and assignments. As Richard Adams of the Guardian insightfully concluded in February 2024:

“By integrating AI into the institution’s infrastructure and curriculum, universities ensure their programmes remain relevant and valuable for an AI-enabled future.”

In our Universities, AI is a game changer. The learning curve is steep for us all but it’s one our academic staff must proactively stay ahead of.