Two CSE faculty members have delivered talks at the QU 14th Excellence Day event, themed “AI in Higher Education: Navigating the Future., which was organized by the QU Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) on June 13, 2023.

Prof. Junaid Qadir delivered a plenary talk titled “Educating for the AI Revolution: Fostering a Holistic Human-Centered Approach Based on Wisdom and Multiplexity”. The talk attracted a packed audience consisting of QU faculty members and external guests. During the talk, Prof. Qadir introduced the audience to the opportunities and challenges presented by new general-purpose AI developments. He highlighted the disruptive impact of these tools on higher education and emphasized their potential to enhance human intelligence, capabilities, and productivity. However, he also stressed the importance for educators to be cautious of limitations such as biases, hallucinations, and misinformation. The discussion further explored effective strategies for higher education to adapt to these dynamic times, ensuring social welfare, enhanced human capabilities, inclusivity, and openness.

Additionally, Dr. Saleh Alhazbi delivered a presentation titled ‘Learning Analytics from prediction to prescription’ during the same event. The presentation highlighted the ongoing efforts in utilizing AI to analyze students’ traced data collected by learning management systems (LMS), and how the objective has been shifted from solely predicting students’ performance to providing proactive feedback aiming to enhance their learning experience. Furthermore, the presentation provided insights into the challenges related to learning analytics. These challenges encompassed ethical considerations, the impact of learners’ internal conditions like motivation, the influence of external conditions such as the nature of the subject being studied, and the role of instructors in the learning process.