Image: by Jewel Caruso Karen Webber, professor emeritus, and Henry Zheng, vice provost of Institutional Effectiveness and Planning at Carnegie Mellon University, published an article on AIR called, "AI in Higher Education: Implications for Institutional Research." With the recent release of ChatGPT, OpenAI's generative pre-trained transformer, Webber and Zheng discuss what drives the development of AI and ML (machine learning), it's key factors, including the implications and opportunities for Institutional Research (IR) and Institutional Effectiveness (IE) professionals. ChatGPT has caused many warnings of disruption in the higher education community due to its "large language models" and the developers constantly updating with "supervised and reinforcement learning techniques." It currently can generate responses to questions fast with "complete answers and essays with varying degree of complexity." Overall, Webber and Zheng state, "We believe that AI, when used properly, can assist in student success, improve accessibility and inclusion, and can help ensure that higher education is transparent, fiscally responsible, accountable, and ethical." However, they advise that there is still a need to remain consciously aware of responsible and ethical uses of data. To view the full article, please visit the AIR webpage. Type of News/Audience: General News
