EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Artificial Intelligence Use in Higher Education

D. Christopher Brooks” Friday, June 11, 2021

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/6/educause-quickpoll-results-artificial-intelligence-use-in-higher-education

AI is being used to monitor students and their work. The most prominent uses of AI in higher education are attached to applications designed to protect or preserve academic integrity through the use of plagiarism-detection software (60%) and proctoring applications (42%) (see figure 1).

The chatbots are coming! A sizable percentage (36%) of respondents reported that chatbots and digital assistants are in use at least somewhat on their campuses, with another 17% reporting that their institutions are in the planning, piloting, and initial stages of use (see figure 2). The use of chatbots in higher education by admissions, student affairs, career services, and other student success and support units is not entirely new, but the pandemic has likely contributed to an increase in their use as they help students get efficient, relevant, and correct answers to their questions without long waits.^Footnote10 Chatbots may also liberate staff from repeatedly responding to the same questions and reduce errors by deploying updates immediately and universally.

AI is being used for student success tools such as identifying students who are at-risk academically (22%) and sending early academic warnings (16%); another 14% reported that their institutions are in the stage of planning, piloting, and initial usage of AI for these tasks.

Nearly three-quarters of respondents said that ineffective data management and integration (72%) and insufficient technical expertise (71%) present at least a moderate challenge to AI implementation. Financial concerns (67%) and immature data governance (66%) also pose challenges. Insufficient leadership support (56%) is a foundational challenge that is related to each of the previous listed challenges in this group.

Current use of AI

• Chatbots for informational and technical support, HR benefits questions, parking questions, service desk questions, and student tutoring
• Research applications, conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and data science research (my italics)
  
• Library services (my italics)
  
• Recruitment of prospective students
• Providing individual instructional material pathways, assessment feedback, and adaptive learning software
• Proctoring and plagiarism detection
• Student engagement support and nudging, monitoring well-being, and predicting likelihood of disengaging the institution
• Detection of network attacks
• Recommender systems

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more on AI in education in this IMS blog
https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=artificial+intelligence+education