Artificial intelligence looks to be the latest venture in the University of Texas at Austin and Grammarly, with the two joining forces in launching an investigative project to adopt generative AI in higher education.
This research, which is being overseen by UT's Office of Academic Technology and is part of the university's Year of AI program, will have two stages. Students, instructors, and staff will first engage with Grammarly's generative AI helper during a testing phase.
Participants from the faculty and staff will create generative AI tasks related to their respective fields of expertise and test them on peers and students.
Second, instructors will draft more thorough lesson plans approved to satisfy UT's academic requirements to involve students in generative AI learning activities.
Grammarly for Education's head of customer success, Mary Rose Craycraft, praised the partnership and pointed out that one of the main challenges facing all schools is leveraging AI to innovate while upholding academic integrity and critical thinking.
Craycraft continues, saying she is excited to collaborate with UT to create best practices to accelerate the industry's adoption of ethical AI.
UT assured its stakeholders, however, that through a Learning Technology Adoption Process (LTAP), the Office of Academic Technology thoroughly evaluates and verifies projects such as the Grammarly adoption.
UT Austin's Assurance
LTAPs offer a systematic and coordinated approach to the data-driven adoption of academic technology to ensure that the University only adopts and promotes technologies on campus that align with its guiding principles of successful teaching.
This procedure protects educators and students from implementing fads or outdated technology that violates data security laws.
In the end, choices made by the University in collaboration with new learning technology platforms reportedly serve the interests of its academics, staff, and students.
In order to take part in both AI-forward and AI-responsible educational activities at UT Austin, the Office of Academic Technology collaborates with individuals who will be using generative AI technologies mostly through case studies and active feedback.
Texas Education's AI Ventures
Texas continues to see an increase in the use of AI, as a recently announced technology was scheduled to be applied there in April.
The Texas Education Agency created an artificial intelligence essay grader that will automatically review students' work for the state-mandated standardized tests.
These assessments will gauge Texan students' ability in reading, writing, social studies, and science, which is required by the curriculum.
The tests will continue to be created by humans and won't alter; instead, Texas' most recent AI innovation, which promises to be distinct from ChatGPT, will verify them.
The AI-powered system, called the "auto scoring engine" (ASE) by the Texas Education Agency, implies that the Lone Star state's requirement for human graders to review students' answers following standardized examinations would no longer apply.
According to earlier reports, after the AI processes all of the student exams, only 25% of the test replies will be sent to human graders for additional scrutiny.
With this new AI technology, Texas could save anywhere from $15 to $20 million by not hiring human graders through outside firms.
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