Title: AI issues
Course: Digivisio DEMO: Planning and creating a MOOC > Section: Creating a MOOC in a virtual learning environment

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems designed to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. These tasks include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, language understanding, and visual perception. The main strength of AI systems is their ability to process large amounts of data and to identify, with a high degree of accuracy, various similarities and patterns. However, it is not perfect here, although it is constantly evolving at a pace that has made writing this section reasonably difficult. AI is also being used all around us without our noticing, for example in our smartphones, in the advertisements we are served, in traffic management, in customer service, and for health and well-being monitoring such as identifying cancer cells in samples.

When creating a MOOC course, AI has many benefits. At its best, AI acts as a tool to spar and enhance the interaction, quality, and richness of teaching, allowing teachers to more easily and quickly create clearer learning units from the material they have already produced. Again, AI is at its most dangerous when it is used to directly produce material without checking it or when it is used to manage student data in unethical ways. Below is a list of so-called best practices for using AI to create a MOOC.

Sparring: You can use AI as a sparring partner to improve your content and develop any thoughts about your pedagogical approach, and as a support feature when you need new ideas.
Proofreading: You can let AI proofread or elucidate your text – you are probably already doing this, for example when you use automatic spell-checking in O365 environments.
Automated translations: AI can produce automated translations directly in learning environments or, for example, translate your video captions directly into another language in srt. format.
Summing up essential content: AI provides excellent support for summarising the content of a module, assignment, or course, for example, to produce revision material or as a basis for automated feedback. You can also offer learners an opportunity to sum up content under guidance.
Media production and multimedia use: With AI, producing multimedia content is faster and easier. For example, you can use Google Notebook LM to turn text material into podcasts and audio-generation AI tools to create music, jingles, and voice. You can also create illustrative images based on the material, or even short videos, and edit them using AI tools.
Questions and assignments: You can use AI to create questions directly based on the text material you provide. For example, Chat-GPT can create multiple choice questions directly and also convert them into AIKEN format. You can also use prompts for activation questions, assignments, and activation tasks related to the core content of your material.
Structure: You can use AI to design or improve the structure of the whole course or one of its modules. You can present an existing structure to AI and ask for additions or elucidations, or get AI to help you decide what kind of continuous feedback collection you should add to the structure, and how.
Learning analytics: To a limited extent, you can use AI to help you analyse anonymised learning analytics data. However, you should inform learners about this and ask for their consent.
Interaction: You can use AI to create interactive elements for your MOOC. An example of this is Block, a virtual dog created for Oulu Business School’s Blockchain MOOC, which guides and instructs the learner, provides continuous encouragement and produces revision material for the learner at the end of each module lesson.

AI use in teaching and learning requires careful consideration, planning, and compliance with ethical principles in order to maximize the benefits of this technology and to minimize its risks. When planning to use AI for producing learning materials, or working on or assessing study attainments, you should pause and reflect on the following issues to minimize risks, work as ethically as possible, and maximize learners’ engagement with teaching and the planning of teaching.

Potential and risks: While AI can improve learning experiences by offering personalized learning paths and supporting teachers in planning and evaluating teaching, it is also important to identify and manage risks related to AI use, including data protection and privacy issues.
Ethical principles: When using AI, learners’ rights and privacy should be respected. This means that AI systems must be transparent, and learners must be clearly informed about how their data will be used.
Compliance with legislation: AI use is governed by laws and regulations that must be strictly observed. They include data protection legislation and educational institutions’ ethical guidelines.
Teachers’ role: Teachers play a key role in the ethical use of AI. They must be aware of the potential and limitations of AI and able to apply ethical principles in practical teaching situations.
Learner engagement: Learners’ views and experiences of using AI are valuable. Learners must be involved in the discussion on using AI in their learning. This will promote their understanding and acceptance of AI use and help identify potential ethical issues. Learners should be clearly informed about how and why AI is used in their learning.
Technology dependency: Excessive dependence on AI may undermine teachers’ and learners’ ability to develop their skills and critical thinking. Technology should be an aid, not a substitute.
Continuous evaluation and development: The impacts of AI use should be continuously monitored and evaluated. This will make it possible to develop and improve practices over time. Organisation-wide boundary conditions for and policies on AI use should also be created that define who is responsible for matters related to AI use in teaching and studies.

When you start using AI in your teaching, always stop and think about ethics and find out about your higher education institution’s guidelines for ethical AI use. If such guidelines do not exist, try to find the best examples among other higher education institutions’ practices or materials produced by the central government (Finnish National Agency for Education/Ministry of Education and Culture). Also, see below for the EU’s take on the ethical use of AI and data in teaching and learning. You can find it in English in the European Union Learning Corner.

HEI:

The higher education institution prepares guidelines and policies on AI use in teaching, studies, and the institution. The higher education institution determines who is responsible for AI use, what the attitude towards AI use is, and who has the power to decide on AI use in studies and how.

Teacher:

The teacher uses AI ethically when producing learning materials for a MOOC. For example, the teacher indicates which AI application was used to create the images and if AI was used to translate the course files. The teacher also sets limits to AI use in the course and instructs learners in the appropriate and ethical use of AI. The teacher does not use AI to assess learners’ performance. The teacher ensures that learners are not treated unequally due to AI use. The teacher makes sure that AI is used securely in their work.

Learner:

Learners comply with the instructions issued to them and observe the freedoms and restrictions relating to AI use during their studies. The learner is always responsible for a thesis they have produced and have a duty to follow the teacher's instructions, for example in reporting the use of AI, the use of certain AI programs, or other work related to artificial intelligence.

  Tools:

While we do not see it, we are continuously surrounded by different AI tools. Generative AI programs help plan the structure of the course, make it possible to play around with its content and structure and, in the best-case scenario, help improve accessibility, for example through producing audio files or improved and simpler plain language text structures.

Fill in AI use in the MOOC in your pedagogical manuscript. Pay attention to at least the following.

- What are your higher education institution’s AI guidelines like?
- What kinds of instructions will you issue, what restrictions will you impose, and which freedoms will you allow learners in relation to AI use during their studies?
- Which AI software will you use to handle the content of the MOOC and to support its creation?
- How will you take care of your and your learners’ information security when using AI?
- How will you report on AI use and refer to AI-generated content in your course material?
- What is the best way for you to use AI ethically, considering your personal prerequisites?

REferences

Opetushallitus: Tekoälysuositukset opetuksessa ja oppimisessa (in Finnish)

Acatiimi: Not just Chat-GPT

Arene: Arene’s recommendations on the use of artificial intelligence for universities of applied sciences (pdf)

Guidelines for the Use of Artificial Intelligence in Education

OPH: Tekoäly opetuksessa: vinkkejä koulujen ja oppilaitosten johdolle (in Finnish)

European Union Learning Corner