AI to be embedded into every University of Surrey course
Starting from next academic year, AI will be implemented into every course at the university in a subject specific way
The University of Surrey have announced that from the start next year, each course will have AI embedded in a subject specific way
The university is taking a systematic redesign of every degree programme in order to ensure AI is covered in a way where the subject still comes first
Professor Annika Bautz, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education at the University of Surrey, says it's the university's role as an educator to flex their courses to keep up with technological advances
"The subject is always the main thing that we teach and that will remain the case. However, we have seen a major technological shift and as an educator, it is our role to flex our education accordingly."
Annika added it was important for students to learn how to navigate AI and where it should and should not be used
"We have to teach the limits of AI, the biases, the overconfident hallucinations, the limitations and ethics so that students can make really informed choices about when and how to use AI.
At the moment, if you open your laptop or your phone, AI pervades everything. You can't really many things anymore on your laptop that don't include AI.
So I think it's really, really crucial that students learn about this so that they can make informed choices as to when and how to use it."
Annika told us about why each course had to go through re-structuring in order to implement the changes
"We're promising students the acquisition of certain competencies or certain skills, and we need to be sure that they are the skills and the competencies that they are acquiring. And that does mean a wholesale redesign of all our assessments.
I think what we really don't want to do is go back to face-to-face exams, because that is not a real world situation
The key has to be that most of our assessments are real world so that they're teaching students to use discipline specific AI alongside the skills and competencies that they've acquired.
You can use AI in the process, but you need to demonstrate how you are still in control, how you're critiquing where it's gone wrong, where it's been overconfident, so that you can also learn where the limits of AI are as well as the uses."