Technology and new media

Anglophone scepticism about the value of language study had been rising for many years before anyone had heard of Duolingo or ChatGPT. But while some academics believe technology will kill off universities’ remaining language departments, others dare to hope it will be their saviour. Patrick Jack reports

Independent review finds evidence of clear value but calls for governance and relationships to evolve, and for stronger funding settlement

US university tests use of technology in training mental health advisers, but experts foresee – and fear – wider application

Universities that only recognise academic integrity implications are ‘really missing the picture’

Effective digital learning requires more than a camera in a classroom, says Ghanaian e-learning leader Eric Appau Asante

Financial constraints reducing appetite for risky experimentation but pressures can also help to ‘clarify minds’, say experts

Institutions ‘got it wrong’ by putting all the attention on assessment when large language models first launched, say experts

Tying state-of-the-art digital research infrastructure to particular research communities should give way to more equitable landscape, conference hears

Former government adviser says a modest cut in operating costs could allow for a doubling of the number of UK academics

Artificial intelligence infrastructure currently dominated by corporations, scientific advisory group warns

Preliminary results showed students who used VR headsets reported greater improvements in how calm they felt compared with those who accessed interventions via smartphones

Proponents of new technology say it can alleviate stress on advisers and make expertise more accessible but critics say this work needs a human touch

Researchers at Paul Smith’s College designed a VR version of a local forest trail using the same graphic engine as popular video game Fortnite

AI lecturers have the potential to free up academics’ time and create more immersive learning environments, but institutions are treading cautiously when it comes to introducing the technology into classrooms

Singapore Management University provost Timothy Clark says reforms will push students away from using generative AI in admissions statements

Study finds students who rely on ChatGPT for academic tasks feel socially supported by artificial intelligence at the expense of their real-life relationships

The sudden rise of generative AI offers an opportunity for reflection and renewal of our scholarly values, say Ella McPherson and Matei Candea

Growing use of chatbots within higher education is likely to foster unoriginal and ‘solipsistic’ thought, says IE president

London Book Fair discussion dominated by concern over large language models using published works without citations or remuneration to authors or publishing houses

Chinese institution says it wants to nurture ‘master-level strategic scientists’

AI will make courses cheaper to deliver, more professionally relevant and more pedagogically effective, says Max Lu 

Innovations such as wearable tech and mobile apps are expected to revolutionise healthcare and generate fortunes. But which researchers and institutions are taking their 10,000 steps, and what should those steps be? To coincide with THE’s Digital Health Summit at Stanford, Jack Grove examines Clarivate’s data and talks to those going the extra mile

Hackers known as Anonymous Sudan reportedly take responsibility and cite ‘UK’s continued support for Israel’

With new project to study advanced computing, NSF doesn’t ask major online companies to share secrets but hopes they eventually will

Survey finds evidence of ‘emerging digital divide’ as majority of undergraduates say they use generative AI to help with assessments

With careful prompting, the AI can offer personalised tutoring that helps students understand where they need to go, says Dan Sarofian-Butin

Would someone who found effective software for their department never have to buy a beer again? Not according to my survey, says Paul Breen

The British Library cyber-attack underlines that HE and research libraries’ technologies and policies put us at too much risk, says Fiona Greig

Scopus AI will be ‘valuable tool’ for researchers seeking to explore academic disciplines and study areas, says leading publisher

Both publishers and the editing firms they outsource to must seek informed consent to use academics’ IP, say Alan Blackwell and Zoe Swenson-Wright

By instilling a passion for innovation and interdisciplinary exploration, higher education can and must remain relevant, say Teruo Fujii and Joseph Aoun 

Stepping down from SNHU presidency, LeBlanc joins Siemens in pushing US higher education to take the generative intelligence challenge far more seriously

New system can help democratise science and speed pace of discovery, says study

Academy and fifth estate must team up, Nobel laureate says, as 3.2 billion people prepare to vote in a reality-free zone

Loss of access to EThOS archive of 600,000 doctoral dissertations causes major disruption for PhD students

Even if university leaders are not experts in the technology, the potential is clear – and they might be able to draw on the ‘wisdom of ignorance’

Most disadvantaged students likely to be hardest hit if human element of selection is replaced by technology, conference hears

AI agents are what they ingest. Rather than scraping the internet, better to confine their diets to books and encyclopedias, says Sorin Adam Matei

AI is helping us mine 200,000 stakeholders’ ideas, sensible and silly, about core elements of the new Adelaide University, say Peter Høj and David Lloyd

Students love it but faculty typically hate it. Both are asking for help with it. But how close are institutions to devising AI policies that protect both academic integrity and student employability? New York University Abu Dhabi vice-chancellor Mariët Westermann offers her reflections

A year after ChatGPT brought generative AI to the masses, we now know it has the potential to change everything – the AI-augmented future is now

Technology can free up space in roles dominated by administration but will only result in more of the same without change in direction, researchers say

Lack of clear guidelines may put instructors on ‘defensive’ over students’ use of ChatGPT, researchers say

Prestigious publishing group will allow authors to incorporate AI-written text and figures into papers if technology use is acknowledged and explained

Difficulties in access to online and physical collections at UK’s national library persist following ransomware incident

Conference attendees discuss how to respond to the ‘600-pound gorilla in the room’ on university teaching

Classes at world’s first postgraduate AI institution can pivot mid-course to explore breakthroughs, says MBZUAI acting provost

Technology’s disruption of traditional career paths should push universities into focusing on ‘human skills’ students need to succeed, say Demos and University of London

From fax machines to dawn of the internet, librarians are used to facing ‘existential crises’ and many are embracing the challenge of ChatGPT head on

Students must be allowed to participate in decisions about technology adoption that affect their education, careers and lives, says Mona Sloane

Potsdam president foresees shift to focus on prompt engineering in teaching – but another AI expert thinks it is just another professional skill to rank alongside ‘can use Excel’

I tell students that I want to make them my academic integrity collaborators, upholding the quality of their own education, says Kenneth Worthy

Apparently widespread use of Bluetooth earpieces by medical school entrance candidates in one province has forced a re-sit, say four researchers 

Bizarre riffs about The Karate Kid or the Wu-Tang Clan may irritate his students, but ‘strategic vexing’ can promote the more adventurous educational mindset that undergraduates require in the age of ChatGPT, says Jose Marichal 

Gone are the days when AI was seen as the villain in education, according to leading HKUST scientist

Test run on more than 300,000 US student applications suggests technology can identify specific personal qualities with little bias

Annual survey of chief technology officers at US institutions reveals concerns about implications of AI but little enthusiasm for spending big on its potential

The UK government’s deeply flawed Online Safety Bill reflects widespread ignorance about tech – even within higher education, says Andy Farnell

Teaching students how to best use ChatGPT and other tools will be core to universities’ future, leaders tell THE summit

Metaverse campuses may be needed to alleviate loneliness of ‘personalised learning at scale’ driven by AI, Anant Agarwal tells THE summit