What AI agents are needed beyond tutoring and content creation in universities? Critical areas relate to student recruitment, admission, enrollment, management, and support. Curriculum design, delivery, and research are also crucial. Strategy, business management, and marketing are other areas that require agents. Student Recruitment: – Domestic Student Recruitment – International Student Recruitment Student Admission: – Study Application Management – Learning Recognition Management Student Enrolment: – Matriculation – Enrollment – Student Allocation – Timetable Management Student Management: – Scholarship Management – Student Liability Management – Student Academic Progress Management – Cross-Institutional Study – Placement Management – Examination Management – Special Consideration Management – Research Candidature Management – Student Misconduct Management Student Support: – Careers Advice – Academic Advice – Core Skills Development – Financial Advice – Student Grievance Management Student Assessment: – Learning Assessment – Student Research Assessment Curriculum Management: – Curriculum Planning – Curriculum Design – Curriculum Production – Curriculum Accreditation – Offering Management – Curriculum Improvement – Curriculum Disestablishment Curriculum Delivery: – Learning & Teaching Resource Preparation – Learning & Teaching Resource Management – Learning & Teaching Delivery – Student Supervision Completion Management: – Completion Award Research Opportunities & Planning: – Research Opportunity Management – Collaborative Opportunity Management – Research Project Design Research Funding: – Research Fund Sourcing – Research Grant Management Research Assurance: – Research Ethics Management – Research Integrity Management – Research Performance Management – Research Quality Management Research Management: – Research Funds Management – Research Program Management Research Delivery: – Research Data Management – Research-Creation – Research Infrastructure Management – Research Resource Management Research Dissemination: – Research Output Management – Research Outcome Management – Research Impact Management – Research Commercialization Management Business Capability Management: – Business Planning – Enterprise Architecture – Customer Experience Management – Business Process Management – Service Management – Change Management – Portfolio & Program Management – Project Management – Product Management – Benefits Management Strategy Management: – Vision & Strategy Development – Strategic Plan Management Advancement Management: – Alumni Management – Development & Fundraising – Donor, Sponsor & Philanthropist Management Marketing Management: – Advertising – Campaign – Market Research – Marketing Planning – Communication Library Administration: – Library Collection Management – Collection Access Management Government, Risk & Compliance: – Policy Management – Quality Management – Risk Management – Compliance Management – Business Continuity Management – Incident Management – Investigation Management – Internal Audit – Complaint & Compliment Management Joe Sabado, from UC Santa Barbara, created a compelling diagram about AI agents: Curriculum Management: – Curriculum Planning – Curriculum Design – Curriculum Production – Curriculum Accreditation – Offering Management – Curriculum Improvement – Curriculum Disestablishment Student Recruitment: – Domestic Student Recruitment – International Student Recruitment Student Admission: – Study Application Management – Learning Recognition Management Student Enrolment: – Matriculation – Enrollment – Student Allocation – Timetable Management Student Management: – Scholarship Management – Student Liability Management – Student Academic Progress Management – Cross-Institutional Study – Placement Management – Examination Management – Special Consideration Management – Research Candidature Management – Student Misconduct Management Student Support: – Careers Advice – Academic Advice – Core Skills Development – Financial Advice – Student Grievance Management Curriculum Delivery: – Learning & Teaching Resource Preparation – Learning & Teaching Resource Management – Learning & Teaching Delivery – Student Supervision Student Assessment: – Learning Assessment – Student Research Assessment Completion Management: – Completion Award Research Opportunities & Planning: – Research Opportunity Management – Collaborative Opportunity Management – Research Project Design Research Funding: – Research Fund Sourcing – Research Grant Management Research Assurance: – Research Ethics Management – Research Integrity Management – Research Performance Management – Research Quality Management Research Management: – Research Funds Management – Research Program Management Research Delivery: – Research Data Management – Research Creation – Research Infrastructure Management – Research Resource Management Research Dissemination: – Research Output Management – Research Outcome Management – Research Impact Management – Research Commercialization Management Strategy Management: – Vision & Strategy Development – Strategic Plan Management Business Capability Management: – Business Planning – Enterprise Architecture – Customer Experience Management – Business Process Management – Service Management – Change Management – Portfolio & Program Management – Project Management – Product Management – Benefits Management Library Administration: – Library Collection Management – Collection Access Management Government, Risk & Compliance: – Policy Management – Quality Management – Risk Management – Compliance Management – Business Continuity Management – Incident Management – Investigation Management – Internal Audit – Complaint & Compliment Management Advancement Management: – Alumni Management – Development & Fundraising – Donor, Sponsor & Philanthropist Management Marketing Management: – Advertising – Campaign – Market Research – Marketing Planning – Communication
George Washington University's (GWU) professor Lorena A. Barba presented a white paper about a pilot project to develop and deploy AI mentors over various courses and organize a faculty community of practice to build knowledge and skills. The pilot is supported by George Washington University's Trustworthy AI Initiative. It analyses how a catalog of retrieval-augmented generative AI aids for course-level learning support. In parallel, a team of social science and education researchers will evaluate the effectiveness of the AI mentors in helping students achieve learning objectives and whether students improve their use of AI assistance over time. GWU's technology partners for this pilot project are ibl.ai, an edtech company that develops software products based on open-source technologies with a growing expertise in generative AI for education. [ibl.ai is the parent company of iblnews.org] • Generative AI for teaching and learning pilot project 2024-5—White paper PDF
The concept of AI actors, or "virtual actors," is gaining traction as advancements in Generative AI continue to evolve. These AI actors are entirely digital creations, capable of performing in films, commercials, video games, and other media without the need for human counterparts. One of the latest companies in the field is aiactors.app. In the same field, other companies are Soul Machines, Synthesia, and HeyGen. introducing aiactors (dot) app – hire ai actors for 25X cheaper ❌ $50/video ✅ $2/video use it instantly for product demos, announcements & more pic.twitter.com/5bNzkepjYU — Ansh Chopra (@anshchopra_) August 19, 2024 HeyGen is absolutely great but a bit different and people don't get the difference cause it's hard: So HeyGen takes a 1-3 min REAL video (or longer) of yourself speaking It trains an AI voice of you (like ElevenLabs does) You then write a script It then 1) generates the AI… https://t.co/5Xgx102qoc — @levelsio (@levelsio) August 11, 2024
LLMs (large language models), still in their infancy, are becoming “more of a commodity,” said Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella. A common view in the industry is that it is hard to separate OpenAI’s latest GPT from Anthropic’s Claude or Google’s Gemini. On the consumer side, Meta said last week that 500 million people are now looking at its Meta.AI at least once a month, However, today, OpenAI’s ChatGPT's dominance is undisputed. Its 250 million users a week and a $20 monthly subscription fee paid by a small minority result in annualized revenue of $3.6 billion. Also, ChatGPT can point to a favored position on the iPhone, thanks to a deal with Apple. On the downside, OpenAI, without a functional business model yet, is on track to burn through over 5 billion of cash this year, Experts say that OpenAI’s biggest challenges are the lack of deep moats around its business and its intense competition, as the costs of querying for other LLMs have fallen rapidly. In addition, the capabilities of open-source AI models have advanced quickly, making them viable alternatives and raising the possibility of the commodification of LLMs. Meta’s Llama hasn’t yet become “the Linux of AI,” as Mark Zuckerberg suggested last week. OpenAI’s latest voice-powered GPT-4o model has been credited with breaking new ground in naturalistic voice interaction, potentially opening up new consumer markets to AI. Also, its GPT-o1 is the first model capable of breaking a complex problem. For now, OpenAI, backed by investors at a $150 billion valuation, maintains an edge in model-building despite powerful companies in tech closing fast.
IBL News | San Antonio, Texas The 2024 EDUCAUSE Analytics Landscape Study, presented at Educause's annual conference last week in San Antonio, Texas, noting that higher education institutions understand the far-reaching impact of data and analytics on their organizations. Regarding AI, Educause found that only a small number of institutions are using AI tools to support analytics, and these tools are slowly gaining traction. Other findings include: • Analytics are most frequently used in admissions/enrollments and compliance with accreditation standards and regulatory requirements. • Smaller institutions have lower access to resources and support for their use of analytics. • Institutions are lacking in dedicated analytics leadership and staff positions. Most said their institution does not have a chief analytics officer (69%) or a chief data officer (57%). • Analytics is a strategic priority, but governance is lacking. Most respondents said that analytics is considered a strategic priority (69%) and necessary for effective decision-making at their institution (67%). "Success hinges on data: data quality, data integration, data governance, data management, and data literacy," said Susan Grajek, Vice President of Partnerships, Communities, and Research at Educause.
