Student-Academic team from MSc Clinical Trials (ICTM) conduct a workshop about AI in Birmingham

Under the mentorship of Dr Deepti Nayak, Clinical Trials MSc Deputy Programme Director, Aliyah Khanum and Dr Gabsile Phala from the UCL Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology (ICTM) presented a workshop at the Advance HE AI Symposium in Birmingham in February this year. 

The workshop was based on a summer project funded by UCL Changemakers Summer AI Project. Aliyah, Gabsile and Deepti spoke about AI Chatbots (LLMs) in higher education: The history of AI, neural networks, and LLMs. They engaged the audience and discussed student and academic perspectives - the audience comprised of academics from all over UK from various faculties. The students spoke about their experience in using AI chatbots, benefits, risks, challenges and about the rapid changes seen since the project. 

Key takeaways:  

• Student perspective - students need to have a baseline knowledge to be able to make LLMs (AI chatbots) provide sensible answers. While working with LLMs and trying to refine outputs, students enhance their learning, as they apply what they have learnt.
• Academic perspective - academics might need to develop/re-define learning outcomes for students to keep their curriculum relevant. They might also need to re-think how they assess students - while keeping in mind that making assessments AI proof might inadvertently make them student proof.