We’ve been discussing how Artificial Intelligence software (AI) has been around for a while and has begun shaping both the classroom and higher education campus management.
Among the benefits of technology of education, machine learning techniques can help improve student experience and services, improve the capacity to analyze college performance at all levels, improve internal task management and getting a computer based second opinion.
But even though people have talked about AI for a while, many have overlooked its projections till today. Even the co-founder of no other than Google, Sergey Brin, admitted that he was ‘surprised’ by the speed of AI advancements. However, now AI touches “every piece of his business.”
"Some of the more mundane tasks are alleviated through technology and people will find more and more creative and meaningful ways to spend their time," he said.
However, what benefits of artificial intelligence in education can help campus management?
Improving simulations, for instance. We’re not just talking about using case studies and gamification in the classroom – although there’s still a long way to go there.
We’re talking about using the power of machine learning, big data analytics, and harnessing Artificial Intelligence to expand the scope of options and scenarios we can consider when planning any complex situation in our college or university, such as enrollment management.
Imagine planning just one academic program. How many variables must you manage? How many options do you have available? How many combinations of courses, classrooms, students do you need to address?
At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, London’s Imperial College academic Dr. Katharina Hauck spoke about the future of Artificial Intelligence, and how it’s helping conduct large-scale data analysis, for instance, in health, using techniques called “model averaging” to test the importance of each factor against all others – using more than a hundred thousand sub-models.
“Now methods developed by artificial intelligence allowed us to reduce estimation time from weeks to a few days” she said.
Forbes contributor Barbara Kurshan believes AI could play “a role in the growing field of learning analytics, evaluating the quality of curricular materials, and in adaptive learning and recommendation engines.”
Simulation software can revolutionize higher education management.
Accenture’s Vegard Kolbjørnsrud, Richard Amico and Robert J. Thomas say that Artificial Intelligence powered information technology will make it possible for managers to explore scenarios or possible futures through simulation, at low cost, “without incurring many of the hazards associated with live experiments”.
“Guided by human questions and problem framing, intelligent machines can help managers sift through vast volumes of data to uncover patterns.”
They add that the use of artificial intelligence in management can both help expose “the long-term implications of short-term decisions,” where machines can help identify unanticipated consequences, or discover new sources of value “through rapid experimentation, carrying out structured experiment at low costs and high speed.”
That way, higher education managers can use machines to consider broader ranges of alternative actions, simulating the impact of significant events and helping them avoid common decision marking issues.
“(…) because of their capacity to run countless “what if” experiments, computers can help executives better test and fine-tune their human judgment in identifying and resolving various cultural, moral and ethical issues for different scenarios.”
But where does that “what if” experiment apply in higher education management?
We’ve discussed that most universities work using a combination of manual work and software: once we create an appropriate resource allocation scenario, our college team uploads the data to an Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP) or a Student Information Software (SIS).
These allow to manage the input of data but do not generate an automated solution, and many institutions have realized that ERPs cannot handle the entire workload. For instance, to automate tasks that are manually-based. This impacts heavily on the academic planning process.
That’s where machine learning techniques and Artificial Intelligence comes. Experts call these machine learning “Intelligent Decision Support Systems.“ Indian computer science scholars Rajan Vohra and Nripendra Narayan Das explain at the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence & Applications that these can be used mainly to remove the drawbacks of Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) systems and traditional decision support systems.
They say that in higher education management, these applications can incrementally perform simulations and predictions in areas like decentralization, student profiling, collaboration models, planning outsourcing and much more.
Do you run simulations in your higher education planning process? Where would you like to use Artificial Intelligence?