A new report from the nonprofit Educause finds that the higher education community is increasingly viewing artificial intelligence (AI) as a strategic priority, but is still facing operational and institutional roadblocks to fully embracing the new technology.
In this year’s report, a larger proportion of survey respondents – 57 percent – agreed that “we view AI as a strategic priority” compared with 49 percent of last year’s respondents. Training for faculty and staff continued to top the list of the most commonly selected elements in institutions’ AI-related strategic planning efforts.
In terms of how the technology is being used on campus, teaching and learning is the functional area most focused on using AI, with particular emphasis focus on the areas of academic integrity (74 percent), coursework (65 percent), assessment practices (54 percent), and curriculum design (54 percent).
The survey also finds two-thirds of respondents said that students at their higher ed institution are using AI somewhat “more” or “a lot more” than faculty. Only two percent of respondents reported faculty use AI more than students.
However, while universities are increasingly focused on AI, that doesn’t mean they are taking steps to fully embrace and implement the technology. Only two percent of respondents said that their institution is accommodating new AI-related costs through new sources of funding, and roughly a third of higher ed executive leaders said that their institution have tended to underestimate AI-related costs.
Universities are still struggling when it comes to ensuring their cybersecurity and data privacy provisions are keeping pace with emerging technologies. Educause’s report finds that only nine percent of respondents reported that their institution’s cybersecurity and privacy policies are adequate for addressing AI-related risks to the institution.
Promisingly, the proportion of respondents reporting that their institution has AI-related agreed-upon procedures (AUPs) increased from 23 percent last year to 39 percent this year. Also, only 13 percent of respondents reported that institution-wide policies have not been impacted by the emergence of AI.
