[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”on” _builder_version=”3.17.6″][et_pb_column type=”2_3″ specialty_columns=”4″][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=”Row”][et_pb_column_inner type=”4_4″ saved_specialty_column_type=”2_3″][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=”3.17.6″ featured_placement=”above” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.17.6″]<\/p>\n
The science and engineering of AI have been the subject of research for decades, but the past two years have seen a step-change in capability and availability, with AI products moving into the mainstream.<\/p>\n
Whether you see it as an opportunity or a challenge, we know that ignoring the implications of AI is not an option because it is already in everyday use by our colleagues, students and competitors. It challenges existing models of teaching and learning, has become essential in many fields to conducting world-leading research, and has the potential to transform operational processes.<\/p>\n
In response to this, the competitive landscape in HE is changing, and we need to grasp the opportunities if we are to remain a leading research and teaching institution and continue to strive to achieve our vision to be recognised globally for the excellence of our people, research, learning and innovation, and for the benefits we bring to society and the environment.<\/p>\n
Getting the foundations right<\/strong><\/p>\n Getting the foundations right is essential to ensure we are not only prepared for this change but able to harness the potential and meet the challenges created by AI.<\/p>\n It will be essential to develop solid, institution-wide foundations, establishing a framework of guiding principles, developing a clear vision, and establishing key elements of our approach.<\/p>\n Teaching and learning<\/strong><\/p>\n We know that AI is already challenging existing models of teaching and learning and is set to drive fundamental change. Back in February 2023 our Vice-President for Teaching, Learning and Students, Professor April McMahon considered the hype and reality of ChatGTP,<\/a>\u00a0in particular, on teaching and learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n We know AI more generally will impact so much, from the way we design and deliver courses to their content, and ultimately the way students learn.<\/p>\n We want to continue to ensure our students have the best possible experience and remain competitive in our ever-changing job market. To do this we need to grasp the opportunities presented by AI-enabled teaching and learning and ensure that both our colleagues and students are prepared.<\/p>\n Research and innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n AI is not only a critically important area of research in its own right, but it is also becoming an essential tool in pursuing world-leading research in virtually every discipline, whilst creating new research challenges around societal impact.<\/p>\n To remain internationally competitive we need to grow our capacity to undertake AI, AI-enabled and AI-related research, within an ethical framework. AI should also play a central role in our innovation strategy, creating the capability to deliver positive economic and societal impacts.<\/p>\n Enabling delivery<\/strong><\/p>\n As well as impacting directly on the core mission of the University, AI also has the potential to transform delivery, changing fundamentally the way we work and the way we deliver our services.<\/p>\n Realising the benefits of AI will require significant investment in technology and training. It will be particularly important to recognise, and manage inclusively, the changing role of colleagues in an AI-enabled organisation.<\/p>\n What next?<\/strong><\/p>\n We know that there are issues that need to be addressed, with that in mind we have developed an institutional review of AI to provide a framework for action.<\/p>\n With this in mind, more than 64 colleagues and I, from a broad range of functions from across the University, have created an institutional review of AI<\/a> that sets out an ambitious agenda for change. This has now been endorsed by the Board of Governors.<\/p>\n Within this review we focus on a range of topics to truly delve into the potential of AI and what we need to do to prepare ourselves for the change, including Teaching and Learning, Research and Innovation, Social Responsibility, Ethics, Risk, and Economic Impact.<\/p>\n Share your feedback<\/strong><\/p>\n As we look ahead to taking some of these changes and recommendations forward, we are keen to hear your views and thoughts on our institutional approach and the findings of the report. If you have any questions or feedback please comment below or get in touch via ai.review@manchester.ac.uk.<\/a><\/p>\n Chris Taylor, Associate Vice-President (Digital Strategy and Innovation)<\/strong><\/p>\n *<\/strong>University of Manchester Institutional Review of Artificial Intelligence\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.17.6″ prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” in_same_term=”off” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ locked=”on” \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” locked=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chris Taylor explores how we can fully leverage the power of AI across teaching and learning, research, innovation, and service delivery at the University. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":3917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]\r\n\r\n When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]\r\n\r\n [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,29,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-teaching","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3726"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3920,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3726\/revisions\/3920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Related<\/h1>\n
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Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>\r\n