Artificial intelligence is one of the newest and best technological inventions, gaining importance in higher education. Some higher education institutes are already using artificial intelligence by applying it in several areas such as student support in learning, staff support in administration practices and student Q&A sections, or other purposes. ASOMI College of Sciences wants to give its students the best possible services for improving the student experience and is interested in issues regarding technology, digitalisation, and AI. This article, therefore, discovers the improvements brought up using AI in higher education.
AI and its multi-faceted improvements
Artificial intelligence provides higher education institutions with a long list of opportunities, for instance, the ability to anticipate enrolment trends, the elevation of academic performance and optimisation of recruitment processes. For example, algorithms based on previous student data and behaviour can anticipate which kind of students will enrol. The algorithm might even predict the origin and the number of students who are about to register. This aspect, of course, helps the higher education institutions to personalisetheir course programs on their future students’ needs to facilitate their college or university experience.
Moreover, artificial intelligence can build up retention plans by helping in time and preventing, rather than curing, students’ needs and requests. For instance, in some universities or colleges, the drop-out rates might currently be high, but AI would help prevent it all by using data to point out the moments in which a student might have difficulties. These difficulties may be of various kinds; for instance, some students may need financial help and universities and colleges usually give them micro-loans or advances.
In this context, higher education institutions could use AI to prevent this situation by warning the school and the student. To do that, this sort of AI warning system should be based on academic, non-academical and operational data.
Student support and AI
Secondly, the recruitment process would become much easier with the use of artificial intelligence. Many new or international students might have a series of questions to which answering using AI bots would be the right solution. Of course, should the answers to these questions not satisfy the students, they should still be given the possibility to contact an administration employee for more complicated issues.
In every case, this kind of Q&A system is helpful because it spares a lot of time for the administrative staff, who can spend their time resolving essential issues instead of answering the simple yes/no questions. Moreover, the admissions processes would ameliorate since these processes would become faster and easier. For instance, AI could help higher education institutes to create retention plans for their future students.
Additionally, higher education institutions could also employ AI for helping students to plan their course load or even recommend them the suitable courses based on previous students with similar data. AI can also build up personalised learning pathways by helping the students to fill the gaps between their studies and careergoals.
Support to teaching and learning methods
Of course, the last but not the most minor aspect is the learning support. Artificial intelligence and bots can reply to students’ questions on what has been learnt during the lessons and store and provide them with the necessary course material.
Students can also ask some simple questionson the course to a bot, but it would be better if an educator would reply to complicated questions. If the lessons are registered, whether online or in-person, a bot could also search for video transcripts and deliver them to the students. By putting, for instance, QR codes on sheets or another kind of course material, the entire class can become virtual and personalised for every student, thanks to AI.
Moreover, also intelligent reading systems using AI are a good idea. For instance, this kind of reader already exist, and they are provided with language detection and text-to-speech translation options. These readers could moreover be used for teaching or analysing texts in foreignlanguages.
In other words
Whatever the use, artificial intelligence has a lot of improvements to offer to higher education institutions. It is of use in improving student experience, facilities and learning methods. It moreover helps colleges and universities predict the enrolment trends and personalise their courses on the needs of their future and current students.
