McMaster strikes task force to explore policies for artificial intelligence

After three years of adjustment, students and faculty at McMaster University were just getting used to life in academia without COVID-19.

Then came artificial intelligence.

The sweeping tech wave is upending traditional forms of teaching and learning, with generative, whip-smart tools now able to draft articulate essays, write complex codes, analyze data and summarize nuanced bodies of text in a matter of seconds.

I liken it to drinking from a firehouse," said Erin Aspenlieder, an associate director at Mac's MacPherson Institute, of how post-secondary schools are grappling with AI's imprint on pedagogy.

It's really difficult to face a change happening as quickly as (AI) is and to try to align governance, policy and strategy in response to it in real-time."

That challenge recently spurred McMaster to strike a task force dedicated to exploring the use of powerful AI systems in the classroom.

Launched May 1, the task force made up of students, staff and instructors who will consider the broad scale of generative AI, its benefits and implications, whether - or how - it can be integrated and what kinds of limits are needed to protect academic integrity.

AI came to the forefront last November with the arrival of ChatGPT, a chatbot capable of generating articulate responses to a variety of questions and interacting with users in a dialogue format.

Schools across North America expressed concern out of fear the tool would harm learning and promote cheating.

Coming from the humanities, the initial concern was around the death of the essay," said Aspenlieder.

But then, as academics, faculty and students started experimenting with the generative tools, a lot of the realization was the breadth of the disruption across multiple disciplines - that it's not solely a problem for the humanities and social sciences."

Indeed, there are AI systems that can write code, debug code, analyze data, process spreadsheets and synthesize massive bodies of text.

What do these mean for the goal of student learning?" Aspenlieder said, pointing to a question the task force is asking itself.

Beyond learning, the task force is also exploring how AI can affect or benefit teaching.

At the MacPherson Institute - which uses research to support excellence in teaching and learning - professors have come asking whether they can use AI to generate assessments, learning outcomes and lecture notes, Aspenlieder said.

What the response to AI at Mac will look like is still unclear.

Aspenlieder said the spectrum of how post-secondary institutions have handled AI is broad. Some schools have banned ChatGPT on their networks outright; others have deployed stronger plagiarism detection programs. At Boston University, a suite of student-designed policies have been introduced to embrace the positives of AI in learning.

I'm proud that Mac wants to make these changes as a university community with students, faculty and staff," said Aspenlieder. AI is something new that's affecting all of us."

The task force hopes to have some policies and guidelines in place by next fall.

Sebastian Bron is a reporter at The Spectator. sbron@thespec.com