Educational technology

New tool promising to watch lectures and complete assignments for students abruptly taken down amid concerns about cheating and data protection

Cheap research round-ups by ‘hallucination-free’ OpenScholar model preferred by experts, says Nature study

Scholars with large followings on app say it is a good way to change misconceptions about what they do

New technologies must be used in ways that ‘strengthen, rather than replace, human expertise’, report authors warn

Private chat forums are ‘valued learning environments’ that can help stop students falling behind, Australian study finds

Executive who oversaw Alexa and Prime as Jeff Bezos’ key adviser sets sights on establishing Coursera as ‘partner’ in technological development, rather than foe

Russell Group institution announces major pivot into digital teaching as universities evolve further beyond traditional models

Institutions urged to take a step back and think about what they are trying to achieve before ‘jumping on AI bandwagon’

To protect critical, context-rich thinking in HE, knowledge agency must be quickly reclaimed from Big Edtech, say Dirk Lindebaum and Gazi Islam 

No correct solution to the challenge of assessment in the age of generative AI, and academics must be given ‘permission’ to tailor their approaches, Australian researchers say

Fears raised over ‘culturally encouraged introversion’ but could study assistants help bridge gap between universities and Silicon Valley?

Let’s focus concern about AI’s energy and water use where it can make the biggest difference and demand accountability from developers, says Cal Innes

OpenAI builds tool to combat student reliance on AI answers, but insists that cheating requires ‘holistic’ approach from universities and tech firms

If we don’t develop policies now, being deepfaked and doxed will become an ever-present risk, say Janine Arantes, Andrew Welsman and Bec Marland

An Indian university founder recently quoted Google AI in defence of his institution’s failure to back an under-fire academic. The incident exemplifies the threat posed to viewpoint diversity on campus by our increasing reliance on a tool trained to favour the majority view, says Saikat Majumdar 

Researcher who waited nearly two years for rejection claims ‘nonsensical’ criticisms of his paper must have been chatbot-generated

Teaching assistants have demanded fair pay for years but industrial action has made little progress. AI offers a significant raise, notes Michael Buehler

This year’s marking season has confirmed for many academics that, less than three years since the launch of ChatGPT, AI use by students has become so rife that their submitted writing is no longer a reliable indicator of what they have learned. Three scholars offer their views on where to go from here

Restrictions on what models will discuss are necessary, but ill-informed blocks distort inquiry, say Lorna Waddington and Richard de Blacquiere-Clarkson

Increased use of words such as ‘delves’, ‘underscores’ and ‘showcasing’ identified since popularisation of large language models

Widespread use of new tools has ‘blurred lines’ between academic support and misconduct, study finds

Our paper was rejected on the basis of reviewer comments that were vague, formulaic, often irrelevant and occasionally inaccurate, says Seongjin Hong

Concerns piling on more tests may harm students as artificial intelligence forces re-evaluation of assessment methods

The tasks that can be automated or augmented are some of those that university staff undertake day in and day out, says Alexander Iosad

AI expert Tshilidzi Marwala calls for closer collaboration between universities and companies and rebalancing of AI power divide away from US and China

Surveyed Australians expect their universities to supply AI support despite concerns about its ‘veneer of learning’

The only way to prevent AI from undermining assessments is to design them that way, Australian researchers argue

University finances and ‘painfully slow’ accreditation processes contributing to UK lagging behind neighbours on AI training, experts warn

The task of reading and rating the thousands of outputs submitted to the UK’s Research Excellence Framework is notoriously Herculean. Could AI ease the burden – or would its use undermine the whole point of having REF panels? As Jisc consults on that question, four writers offer their views

Large language models are becoming a powerful complement to human judgement in the validation process for our sustainability-focused rankings, says Victor Melatti 

Universities should not overlook artificial intelligence for student support purposes, says machine learning expert

Development of tools that can provide personalised learning will leave universities to focus on professional and personal development, incoming chair of OfS says

University president believes strained relations bring opportunities for Hong Kong’s development but warns international collaborations increasingly at risk

The co-intelligence revolution is quietly reshaping what academic excellence means – and who can attain it, says Jakub Drábik

Firms promise technology can boost conversions and relieve pressure on overworked teams, but critics warn over impersonal processes and massive bottlenecks of ‘nonsensical’ applications

Hidden environmental impact of roll-out of AI bots and assistants not well understood, experts warn, with much of it outsourced to big technology companies

Despite widespread misgivings about productivity gains, digital transformations are considered a safer bet than campus investment, survey suggests

Wave of ‘low-quality’ papers threatening to overwhelm journals and peer reviewers, preventing them from assessing more meaningful research

Academics at UCL’s law school challenge sector’s embrace of technology, claiming students’ over-reliance on ‘shortcuts’ damages skills acquisition

If students don’t make the effort to comprehend, synthesise and relate ideas for themselves, they will miss out on meaningful academic growth, says Zahid Naz

The clever stimulation of popular resentment against the perceived elitism of higher education only leaves the masses to the mercy of oligarchs who have aced the populism game, says Saikat Majumdar

Bots’ tendency to display ‘unwarranted confidence’ and fixate on ‘pink elephants’ particularly risky in medical research, according to new paper

European universities urged to review dependence on Amazon, Google and Microsoft as Trump policies expose vulnerabilities

Universities must also be flexible enough to facilitate continuous course adaptation as technology advances, say Caroline and Lee Clewley

Data indicates more scholars turning to alternative social media site to post about their work after Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover

When technology is deployed to augment individuals’ capacities, they retain the power to shape social and political outcomes, says Stephanie Marshall

Rapid pace of change makes keeping course content up to date a real challenge, according to technology expert

Universities let students down if they fail to prepare them for the future workplace, LSE conference hears

‘Problematic’ lack of skills and knowledge over online security prompts move to create shared service

China’s ambition to lead the world in AI is far from unique. Yet its resources, talent and coordination of higher education and industry could just give it the edge, especially as Donald Trump’s policies diminish the US’ allure to top talent. Helen Packer and Futao Huang report 

ScienceDirect innovation allows academics to interrogate articles and compare experiments

Rise of robot-written summaries should push publishers to articulate value and impact of research more clearly, argues Oxford University Press director

AI is here to stay but universities must teach students to use it responsibly, say Duncan Brumby, Anna Cox, Advait Sarkar and Sandy Gould

Universities should prioritise ensuring that assessments are ‘assessing what we mean to assess’ rather than letting conversations be dominated by discussions around cheating

One in four students tell Hepi they use text generated by tools such as ChatGPT in submitted work

Report by former prime minister’s institute also urges new UKRI leadership to oversee urgent changes to overcome ‘patchy’ adoption of AI in research community

Better collaboration needed between industry and universities to develop the sector, says report

Rapidly growing AI tool brushes off questions about Tiananmen Square and spouts Communist Party line on sensitive topics like Taiwan

Tech platform chief is proponent of locally grown AI talent, as Asian superpower focuses on industry-academia collaboration

US university harnesses training hospitals to test and evaluate AI-driven public health solutions