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Go try, fail fast, try again: how Queen’s University Belfast is embracing AI

Queen’s University Belfast is taking a positive, proactive approach to AI – and using Jisc’s digital transformation toolkit has helped bring the whole community on board with its AI strategy.

“Go try, fail fast, fail well and come back and let's try again.” It may sound simple but Queen’s University Belfast’s (QUB) proactive approach to AI, which stands out from many other universities, is built on firm foundations. It’s those solid underpinnings that provide students and staff with the confidence to try, test and learn about AI, responsibly and effectively.

“Everything is about relationships with people and how we communicate well, how we listen well and how we use that to inform our practice,” says Stefanie Savage-Campbell, senior educational projects manager. And that’s not simple at all. It takes time, commitment and leadership to develop the culture, people and processes that support an academic community to embrace emerging technologies in a positive and safe way, as QUB has done.

Embrace the inevitable

QUB’s approach to AI is part of its wider digital transformation journey, which has benefited from using Jisc’s digital transformation toolkit to support the institutional co-creation of its AI strategy.

One of the central themes of QUB’s Strategy 2030 is to be a global institute of educational excellence. As part of this strategic ambition, senior leaders responsible for the educational experience were keen to consider how they should address AI. They sought to move away from a predominantly risk-related focus on AI and facilitate discussion about when and how it could add value. They wanted to consider the potential value of AI not only within the context of improved learning and teaching experiences, but also in terms of employability skills and increased accessibility and inclusion. Professor Philip Hanna, dean of education, faculty of engineering and physical science says:

“The inevitability of AI is that we know it is going to change how we teach. We know it's going to change how our learners approach their learning. We know it's going to change how we assess, and we also know that it's going to change jobs. It is better not to put off the inevitable, but rather to embrace it now, even if that means there's more short-term discomfort and challenges.”

When it comes to AI and employability, there’s also an acute awareness at QUB that, given the pace at which technology is developing, it is not specifically AI skills that students need when they move into the workplace but the confidence and transferable skills to handle whatever today’s technologies are going to evolve into in the next three to five years. That, too, fed into the process. Stefanie says:

“If we can encourage our students, in a controlled and a supportive environment, to explore AI and other technologies, and to do that with innovation and creativity and with support, guidance and some buffers to help them along that process, then they become more confident and enabled to go and use that same set of behaviours and approaches when they go out into the workforce.”

Listening widely

Embracing AI in a responsible way involved the whole QUB community, with vital support from the senior leadership team. During the project to develop the AI strategy, about 100 people were involved in stakeholder engagement activities, including nine at pro vice-chancellor or dean level. Colleen Murray, education project coordinator, faculty of engineering and physical sciences explains:

“Jisc’s digital transformation framework is a toolkit made up of templates and action plans. It's also made up of a maturity model which we used. It was focused on digital and we adapted it to make it more AI relevant. The maturity model was very comprehensive and we had to make sure that we were engaging with the right people.”

Alongside dedicated stakeholder group meetings, the project team also organised inclusive events that were open to all staff and students, allowing them to participate in meaningful and productive discussions that fed into the wider findings and feedback. One of these on-site events, facilitated by Jisc and Queen’s University Belfast’s digital education team, was attended by more than 70 staff and students eager to explore the transformative potential and values that might steer AI integration into academic environments. Faith Wallace, a QUB psychology student who took part in the process says:

“For students what really comes into play is this back and forth conversation where we have these kind of needs and desires and outlooks for AI and the university says I hear you and this is how I feel like we can actually shape that within our policies and our legislation going forwards.”

Authentic voices

For QUB, involving students has been a key part of the strategy development, and this has followed through into the diverse resources and multiple communication channels used by the university to share tools and training, emphasising the importance of authentic voice.

While academic and professional staff are targeted through in-person training sessions, weekly staff news roundups and monthly in-depth newsletters featuring AI activity across the institutions, some of the student-facing content is created by two digital interns who can reach students in the online places they spend time. Aidan Deery, digital learning designer explains:

“The digital interns are recent graduates and have been really good at boosting our presence on social media. They have a good understanding of the current context of students, and how they're trying to navigate through their degrees in this new world. So they're bringing that perspective to the work, sharing that in social media that's been really effective.”

Similarly, QUB’s excellent open access digital resource hub (DigiHub) is focused on making training materials as accessible as possible to both staff and students. The resources showcase interesting use cases, demystify the tools, highlight their strengths and limitations and offer an interactive prompt engineering resource. The dedicated student-facing resources highlight acceptable use but also provide examples of how AI can be leveraged in useful and beneficial ways, demonstrating a more positive stance towards the technology. Aidan says:

“We have showcased the student perspective as well, through both podcasts and blogs. We invite students to blog about how they're using AI, which makes it a little bit more approachable.”

Continuing to listen

Next up for QUB is working with Jisc on a beyond blended research project, focusing on curriculum design and the concepts of space, place, modes and time. It’s building on those firm foundations – the culture, people and processes – set in place through the AI strategy development. Stephanie says:

“We've now built a culture and community of practice that is about listening to what people need, what people want, what people want to try, and what support we can put in place.”

For Professor Philip Hanna, it’s the next step in a listening and learning process based on a shared understanding that QUB is integrating AI and digital more richly into education to create better educational outcomes:

“We need to be clear with all our people that our relationship with technology is going to deepen, and this is a journey we're all going to be going on. Leaders have a role to make sure that we're in a position where we're embracing this, to strongly signal so that everybody understands and is on the same page. This is something very much that we've learned through this process. It's about listening to people, to our staff and to our students, understanding what needs and questions they have and then putting in place something that provides support for them.”

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