The University of Delaware is using AI this fall to help turn instructor transcripts and lectures into interactive study tools.
The Academic Technology Services team (ATS) is using UD StudyAiDE to help with the process and ATS director Erin Sicuranza believes the initiative will empower students.
"Giving them the tools that are personalized and helping them to advocate for their own study habits," Sicuranza said. "That's sort of where it started. What it has since grown into is this ability to sort of shape how AI is being used in higher ed more broady."
UD is partnering with Amazon Web Services and will use archived video files and text transcripts from more than 300,000 classes.
Jevonia Harris leads the ATS educational software engineering team and notes that this isn’t mandatory.
"One of the primary highlights is that this is at a faculty opt-in," Harris said. "So when faculties decide that, yes, please use this data to help students be able to reduce AI safely and help me also to get more familiar with AI. They're also realizing that hey, I have my own data that I may be able to use for my own benefit."
While the project has been in the making for a year and a half, the idea for it came shortly after ChatGPT was launched in late 2022.
