Our Position Statement on AI

Our strategy pledges to give its students the education they need to flourish in a changing world. The explosive appearance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into workplaces, education and wider society, and the skillsets required to use AI well, provides an opportunity to refresh the ways in which we approach the use of AI technologies in student learning, through our teaching, assessment and research practices.

We will embrace AI through a Curious, Critical, and Compassionate lens:

• Curiosity – through play, experimentation, and exploration of AI technologies we will broaden our perspectives and contribute creative solutions to AI’s complex challenges.
• Critical debate and reflection will encourage us to contextualise our learning, embody UAL’s guiding principles for Climate, Social and Racial Justice, and foster futures thinking for social justice education.
• Compassionate and informed adoption of AI into the design of our teaching, assessment and research where appropriate will support students’ effective use of such technologies in their learning, and help them prepare for work in culturally and linguistically diverse contexts.

Definition of AI

AI refers to technologies that have been trained on large volumes of data to enable them to perform tasks previously only humans can do such as: generating audio, visual and written content, writing code, creating simulations, recognising speech, translating text, identifying patterns and making decisions.

Values and Principles

We believe AI can be used to enhance student learning. Our approach is not to replace the skills, knowledge and experience of our educators but to develop the AI literacy and capabilities of our staff and students, to critically explore and appropriately apply use of AI, uphold our standards of academic integrity, and honour our commitment to becoming a social purpose university.  Informed by the work of the Russell Group (2023) our approach is underpinned by the following five principles:

We will encourage AI literacy in staff and students to aid understanding of:

• Privacy and data considerations
• Potential for bias, inaccuracy and misinterpretation of information
• Implications for academic integrity
• Ethical dimensions of their work in relation to climate, social and racial justice

We will equip staff to support students’ use of AI technologies:

• We will provide training and resources so that staff are able to give students clear guidance on how to use AI tools to support their learning, assignments, and research.
• Through regular, ongoing opportunities for engagement and dialogue between academic staff and students we aim to establish a shared understanding of the appropriate use of AI tools.

We will adapt teaching and assessment practices where appropriate to incorporate relevant use of AI and support equal access:

• Appropriate use of AI is likely to differ between the creative disciplines. We will encourage staff to consider how these tools might be applied appropriately for different student groups or those with specific learning needs.
• We will consider how best to respond to a potential proliferation of subscription tools and attempt to ensure fairness of access.

We will ensure academic rigour and integrity is upheld:

• We have reviewed its academic misconduct policies and guidance to reflect the emergence of AI. These policies are intended to support students in making informed decisions, empowering them to use these tools appropriately and acknowledge their use where necessary.
• We aim to cultivate an environment where students can ask questions and discuss the associated challenges openly and without fear of penalisation.
• We will regularly evaluate our policies and guidance for staff and students to ensure they remain valid as AI technologies evolve.

We will work collaboratively with all its stakeholders to share best practice as the technology and its application in education evolves:

• AI is a complex, nuanced and fast changing arena. No individual, group or team within the university hold all the answers.
• To understand the technical, social, educational and ethical considerations and their associated implications for skills development we will need to work as committed partners with each other, our students, employers, as well as sector and professional bodies.
• We will continue to value the input of others, along with contributing expertise to national and international discussions around AI and its applications within teaching, learning, and research.