TECHNOLOGY campusreview . com . au
Human leadership
AI best practice and the sector
By Martin Betts , Dr Ant Bagshaw and Professor Rose Luckin
Since last November , the two focuses of higher education practitioners , leaders and commentators , have been the sector review of the interim report of the Australian Universities Accord , and the potential effects of artificial intelligence ( AI ). Both have also been a focus for our students to some extent .
An accurate prediction of what AI technologies ’ impact will be is complex for students and universities alike . After decades of research into AI technology , the release of ChatGPT and other AI technologies changed everything . Yet AI hardly gets a mention in the interim report of the Accord .
AI has undoubtedly changed the landscape for higher education irrevocably . It is leaving more of us needing to , and few of us currently able to , fully understand how or what its implications will be . It is critically important that those reviewing the sector address it fully as an issue .
Responses to the technologies need to be proportional . We can only ensure this by identifying which higher education problems we need to solve . Once these starting points are established we will be able to take the right steps in exploring how AI will impact us all .
There is clearly a need for responses to the technologies from individual practitioners , universities , and other HED institutions and their leaders . But a response is also needed for the sector as a whole , one that progresses beyond attempts to ban the technology .
But the more measured responses will take time to think through and become established . This will require a larger number of us to be armed with appropriate and relevant understanding and experience . We need ongoing research and ongoing access to global and out-of-sector best practice .
It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale and the range of ways in which AI might impact the learning processes and business operations of our sector . To cope with that we need to define manageable , bite-sized , and specific HED problems and issues . Once this is done we can experiment with how AI can contribute or otherwise .
This requires a managed response within our institutions , which in turn calls for appropriate leadership , strategy , governance , and resourcing and management of innovative processes . Research understanding will continue to inform some of these . Experience from practical implementations based on that research will also be needed .
Much of the leadership challenge is cultural and relates to the need to demonstrate through role modelling behaviour , our ability to be vulnerable . We are not used to this .
Given that all leaders are ill-prepared and blind-sided by these technologies , the worse response would be to present as invulnerable , or ignore them . The process of developing understanding and experience , to help with a journey toward future mastery , comes from demonstrating and adopting authentic vulnerability . It needs a questioning and exploratory mindset .
A further principle that is enabled by cultural foundations of vulnerability , is to adopt exploratory behaviour into the specific and proportional problems and solving them through partnerships . These problems will be of both a pedagogic and administrative nature . Pedagogic matters obviously include academic integrity . But an over-focus on control could add to our isolation from students who do not see
The challenge to be proportional , vulnerable , and exploratory , with a student focus , is required of our sector leaders and policy makers
being controlled as the opportunity they are looking for , nor one they need .
In a world of increased democratisation of HED , and with the need to ensure increased equitable student access and support to completions , applications that focus on student retention are a good place to start . This may mean more cooperation and collaboration with EdTech providers of student support services . We might also need to increase collaboration with other technology and service providers to our sector , particularly those that develop understandings of technologies in business and areas of future work skills . These may be complementary to how our institutions advance technology and scientific and ethical expertise and experience .
The over-riding principle needs to be acting in our future students ’ and learners ’ best interests . Not doing so could add to our irrelevance to our future customer base , which might no longer see the value of our offering as worthwhile . This would relate to the skills that students will need , and the preferences they have for working and learning , and how they feel rapidly advancing , ubiquitous and freely available technology can help them .
This will create a new and complex leadership and cultural agenda for practitioners and leaders who wish to keep in step with students and learners . It also creates a dynamic policy challenge for the sector ’ s leaders and policy makers when forecasts and preparations for long-term visions are being made .
At a time when the Accord is looking to reposition the sector for a doubling of student completions by 2050 , primarily from under-represented equity groups , ignoring the potential contribution of AI to achieving that end is an oversight . The most significant recent breakthrough productivity technology needs a bigger place in our plans than that . Given limitations of funding and the issues with student pipelines from our school system , this might be the only means of realising the vision . ■
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