PLENARY : Jesus Boticario, UNED – Massive Deployment of Artificial Intelligence at Higher Education Institutions: Do we really know what we are aiming at?

24 Jun 2020
09:45 - 10:30
Online

PLENARY : Jesus Boticario, UNED – Massive Deployment of Artificial Intelligence at Higher Education Institutions: Do we really know what we are aiming at?

There is nothing new in realising that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used in educational processes (AIED) with an increasing level of success for over four decades of research and development (Lane, McCalla, Looi, & Bull, 2016).

What is new is that it is a felt demand to use it already as a key tool useful at all levels of education based on the intelligent management of a growing number of data and resources. However, AIED at scale entails organisational, educational and learning changes in all educational levels. Higher Education Institutions (HE) have a head start on this and an urgent demand to fulfil because both they have more technological infrastructure in place and have been collecting data for long and students are already used to enjoying personalisation in their daily activities “barring” learning. But first things first. Do we have a clear idea of what is personalised learning and how the whole educational system has to be refocused so that each learner becomes the main centre of the learning process?

This needs a global approach that covers all that is involved, starting from the nature of the daily tasks of the main protagonists, teachers and “learners”. It also considers the need to properly take care of large-scale data-sets which account for authenticity, consistency and transparency, careful management of data learning processes, privacy and ethical issues.

All this along with organisational changes are arguably achievable goals if the approach is based on:
1) Clear analysis of the implications in deploying personalised learning at scale,
2) Supervision and assurance of governance in terms of the intertwining relationships among AI, data and ethical issues involved,
3) Massive production of digital materials which are to comfort to standards and interoperability requirements,
4) Methodological and technical support to implement the required infrastructure and
5) An unshakeable commitment with taking on board all the stakeholders involved before making the required profound changes to make this happens, i.e., changing from “education” to “learning”.