Rachel Crookes, Head of Sage Campus, goes behind the scenes on how we updated the Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course to reflect the changing landscape in 2023.
“Are you doing a course on ChatGPT?”
This is one of the most common questions I’ve been asked in 2023 so far. No matter who I met with on campus, Librarians and Faculty voiced the same concern: “I’m being asked about ChatGPT all the time, and I’m not sure what to say… are you doing a course that can help us?”
It was less than a year ago that we first launched an Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, in September 2022. By early 2023, we realized we needed to re-open those course files and add some coverage of Generative AI and ChatGPT – things have been moving so rapidly since the launch of ChatGPT 3 (November 2022) and then ChatGPT 4 in March this year.
Planning the changes
We met in April as a content team to figure out how best to add some content and what to focus on, and decided to do the following:
Course screenshot: Using ChatGPT to aid your research process
Add distinct content on ChatGPT and generative AI, rather than weave it in throughout the course. We felt adding two new topics in Module 1 would help learners discover this new content more easily and get learning right away.
Focus on explaining AI tools in simple terms. Why are they different to what’s come before, and what risks and limitations do they pose? What can’t they do yet and what does this mean for you as a student, faculty member of librarian?
Spotlight practical applications for these tools, and explore other alternatives to ChatGPT that may be better suited to handling academic tasks or processes.
Our goal is really to help a variety of learners become more familiar with the potential uses and risks of tools such as ChatGPT within an academic or research context – we didn’t and don’t intend to endorse ChatGPT or any other generative AI tool. We took pains to ensure we put together a careful outline of what the tools are, how they work, what they can be used for and most importantly the caution that should be undertaken when using AI for study or research.
Overcoming challenges
Honestly, it was not easy! We worked with our Instructor, academic reviewers and several internal Sage technology experts to draft, revise and re-draft the content through about half a dozen versions before we were satisfied.
Course screenshot: Main risks and limitations of using Generative AI tools in the research workflow
Some of our challenges involved:
Keeping explanations simple but accurate – harder than it appears when trying to explain what stochastic means!
Staying focused on valuable use-cases rather than all the possible use-cases
Keeping up with the rapidly evolving AI scene. Each day there seemed to be a new tool, a new article saying ChatGPT is the death of academic integrity, or worse.
Articulating the balance between using these tools creatively and cautiously, making sure you’re being transparent, open-minded and fully aware of their risks
We spent a lot of time using the tools ourselves so we could better understand how to use them, how to write good prompts, and see whether they are helpful. This was really fun and experimental, and truly the best way to learn more about ChatGPT and tools such as Scite.AI.
Launching the update
Course screenshot: Having a go with ChatGPT and reflecting on how it works
The new, updated course is now available for enrollment, and no doubt we will need to update it very soon as things change.
So, over to you - what do you think of the topics we’ve launched on ChatGPT? What do you need help with when it comes to understanding and advising on use of these kinds of tools? We’d love to hear from you…
About Sage Campus
As a digital library product, Sage Campus provides university-wide access to the full suite of 37 self-paced online courses worth over 280 hours of online learning for skills and research methods. Librarians can find out more about how Sage Campus works for institutions and get a 30-day free institutional trial. Faculty members, students and researchers who would like to use Sage Campus for their teaching or own learning can recommend Sage Campus to their library.