HE Community October Meetup - Priorities

Our first HE Community meetup of the year was our biggest gathering yet – we had over 100 people on the call. This month we focused on identifying and discussing current sector priorities, with three emerging as the most pressing:

Digital Upskilling and Mandatory AI Training

The group agreed that digital upskilling for staff is the most urgent priority. There was strong support for mandatory AI training for both staff and students, highlighting the need for a consistent baseline of understanding across institutions.

Examples were shared, including the University of Leeds’ mandatory 30-minute online courses for both staff and students, designed to mirror one another and focus on safe and responsible AI use, digital skills, and data governance.

Participants noted the importance of collaboration across digital education, staff development, researcher development, library, and IT teams. However, many institutions still face challenges with uneven staff engagement and varying confidence levels. The group also highlighted the need for clear, unambiguous institutional guidance on what constitutes acceptable AI use, as uncertainty remains among both staff and students.

Assessment Design and AI

The discussion turned to assessment design, with recognition that traditional assessment types are increasingly vulnerable to generative AI. Staff described running informal experiments by using AI to complete their own assessments, often finding that AI-generated work could achieve high marks.

Academic integrity issues were reported to be rising, particularly around fake referencing and fabricated citations, with international students highlighted as especially at risk.

Participants discussed strategies to strengthen assessment robustness, such as incorporating practical or observation-based tasks, and encouraging students to be open about how they use AI. Frameworks such as traffic-light or two-lane models were debated, with questions about fairness and transparency in marking policies.

A key takeaway was the need to communicate more clearly the purpose of assessments and the skills they are designed to develop, so students better understand the rationale behind assessment formats.

AI-Assisted Marking and Feedback

AI’s potential role in marking and feedback received considerable interest. Some staff are already using AI to generate or refine feedback, though always with human oversight. The group discussed mixed student reactions: while some prefer human feedback, others appreciate the speed and consistency that AI tools can bring.

Participants saw potential for AI to support professional development, especially for new lecturers, and to help analyse feedback trends across large cohorts. Transparency was again emphasised, with agreement that students should be informed if AI tools contribute to their assessment process.

The group expressed interest in further sector-wide research and pilot projects on AI-assisted marking and feedback, including surveys and case studies.

Ethics, Practicalities, and Future Directions

The ethical implications of AI use in assessment remain a key concern. Participants discussed the potential for job displacement, and the need to retain human judgment at the heart of assessment and feedback.

The conversation also touched on the importance of aligning assessment design with learning outcomes, ensuring authenticity, and maintaining educational integrity in an AI-enabled environment.

Several members shared frameworks, pilot studies, and research links, agreeing to continue sharing findings through the community blog to build collective knowledge and avoid duplication.

Next Steps

While this session focused on identifying priorities, the next meetup on November 19th will explore how we can collectively act on them as a community.

Links Shared in the Chat

Find out more by visiting our Artificial Intelligence page to explore publications and resources, learn more about our communities and sign up for our AI Literacy training.

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Get in touch with the team directly at AI@jisc.ac.uk