Artificial Intelligence (AI) is profoundly reshaping our world, and its influence on education is unquestionable. In this digital era, AI presents boundless opportunities to completely revolutionize our teaching methods, enhance learning outcomes, and deliver educational experiences that are highly customized and tailored to each individual. This presents an extraordinary chance to reevaluate our approach to teaching and learning, all the while proactively addressing the upcoming challenges that our institution must confront.

“The USJ advocates for the non-prohibition of generative AIs and emphasizes the importance of training its future graduates in a thoughtful and enlightened manner that fosters the development of their critical thinking and creativity.” This stance reflects our University's position on the use of generative AI.

We wholeheartedly endorse this approach and, as always, strive to support our community in undergoing this genuine, ethical, and responsible digital transformation, driven by a commitment to excellence.

In this newsletter, we shall delve into diverse aspects of AI's application in higher education. It will feature a comprehensive database of AI-powered tools spanning across academic fields of study as well as a resource directory aimed at enlightening our community on the latest trends and best practices for integrating AI into our courses and research activities.

Furthermore, we will showcase the projects undertaken by our Committee for Digital and Artificial Intelligence Strategic Orientation, exemplifying our collective dedication to assume visionary roles in the contemporary educational landscape.

We hope this newsletter will spark thoughtful reflection, facilitate meaningful dialogue, and encourage fruitful collaborations within our community. We eagerly invite you to share your ideas, suggestions, and successes as we work together to build a bright future for higher education!

"Artificial intelligence now affects all aspects of our social lives. Without always knowing it, we interact daily with intelligent systems […]. They serve us invisibly. At least, that's the goal we assign them: to make our lives better, task by task.”(Villani, 2018, p. 139.)

Teachers and students all over the world are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) systems, sometimes even without realizing it. Search engines, smart assistants, chat rooms, machine translations, navigation applications, online video games and many other applications that make our daily lives easier. AI systems collect and process vast amounts of data in different forms (sounds, images, texts, messages, etc.) which together, create our digital footprint.

AI has the power to improve education and training for students, teachers, and managers. As AI systems evolve and data use increases, it is of utmost importance to better understand their impact on the world around us, especially in education and training. However, teachers and leaders should have at least a basic knowledge of AI and the use of data in order to approach this learning technology in a positive, critical, correct and ethical way and to use it to its full potential.

The use of AI raises interesting ethical reflections in particular the necessity of strengthening digital skills and competencies to embrace digital transformation and the need for increased awareness of the potential risks associated with emerging technologies in terms of ethics, sustainable development, protection and data veracity and online privacy, rights as well as discrimination and prejudice. (read more)