National University has undertaken a pilot program that provides doctoral students with an AI tool trained for academic research. The goal of this pilot is to determine the utility of an AI tool to help students conduct their literature review and to see if the breadth and depth of literature improves with the assistance of AI.

The pilot provides students with a free license to the AI tool, faculty trained in the AI tool, and training/support for the students by the AI vendor. The results of the pilot will be the research design and literature review students develop using the AI tool.

Attendees of this session will learn about how doctoral students leveraged AI in developing their dissertations. Emphasis will be on plagiarism, doctoral writing, and the synthesis of literature. We will also show data on the number of drafts and time to complete their literature review.

Since the pilot is underway, the findings will not be known until January of 2025.

David Hildebrandt, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, School of Technology & Engineering, National University

Our research indicates that AI and its application in higher education are popular in media reports in China and America, reflecting the enthusiasm and concerns in both societies. However, their focus and priorities are quite different. Currently, AI is often valued for its institutional plans and management efforts by professional and administrative elites in China, whereas in America, ordinary teachers and students are often reported to apply AI tools as concrete pedagogical activities. AI and its applications are also promoted as powerful opportunities to solve many issues facing China and its higher education. A lot more concerns and different voices are raised in the media reports by the U.S. Whether and how we can use AI tools for the success of all the higher education institutes and for all the students will be explored and discussed in more detail in our presentation.

Amy Liu, Consultant, Office of Academic Program Assessment (OAPA), California State University, Sacramento
Cheng Chen, Associate Professor, Zhejiang Gongshang University, People's Republic of China

The age of Artificial "Intelligence" (A.I.) introduces new challenges, opportunities and questions that are, in many ways, as old as the Academy itself. This presentation engages some of these challenges and opportunities with participants through questioning the symbolic frames (language games) through which we come to know A.I. and translate this knowledge to our students, our communities and each other. As with any great power, our translative roles comes with ethical responsibilities, responsibilities that we will think through to develop actionable practices that are both practical and adaptable to emergent technologies such as A.I.

David Schulz, Professor and Chair of Communication & Media Studies, Concordia University Irvine