Centering the Student: Gathering Student Perspectives and Creating Content on Generative AI

With the growing prevalence of generative artificial intelligence (AI), students are beginning to utilize AI as tools in their classes and personal lives. The corresponding university response often assumes student understanding of the tools. In contrast, library staff at UCLS put together a team to understand student perceptions, given the varying student experiences with technological inequalities, access to resources around AI, and cultural backgrounds and perspectives surrounding technology. This presentation, originally presented at ALA 2024, will describe the development of resources to assist student knowledge and use of AI, based on gathered date. The team is co-led by two librarians, and consists of full-time library staff, instructional developmental staff, and student library workers. The team collaborate s on a suite of projects that include: gathering and analyzing data about current use of AI on campus via a pop-up survey; an IRB survey; an interactive tutorial on the ethical use of AI in coursework; an AI tools resource guide; an external, campus workshop addressing algorithmic bias and bias in AI; and an internal, library workshop on AI in library instruction.

This hour-long presentation will cover the process of guiding what began as an ad-hoc interest group into a large-scale, multi-faceted team; the project component, lessons learned, and will touch on how the project outputs address diverse student perceptions and need surrounding generative AI. Attendees will leave with insight into student perception and ideas on how to address conversations and students needs surrounding AI at their institutions.

By the end of this webinar, attendees will:

  • Identify approaches for creating student focused resources on AI
  • Learn strategies for gathering student and staff feedback on AI
  • Gain insight into student perceptions and needs surrounding AI
  • Learn strategies for coordinating large, multi-team projects

Presenters:

Renee Bowen, Former UCLA Sciences Librarian

Shelby Hallman, Physical Science and Engineering Librarian, UCLA Library

Hannah Sutherland, Open Science & Collections Librarian, UCLA Library

The target audience is people interested in college student needs and perceptions of artificial intelligence, people creating campus resources for students and staff, and people interested in coordinating large, ad-hoc project teams. For people interested in implementing similar initiatives at their institutions, the presenters will share the project development process, multiple types of resources and outreach/engagement methods, and discuss data gathered from students.

This webinar will be offered using Zoom. Speakers or a headset for listening to the presentation are required. Closed captioning is available in the Zoom platform. You may interact with the presenter and ask questions through text-based chat. The webinar will be recorded and the link to the recording shared with registrants shortly after the live event.

For questions or additional information, please contact Ninah Moore at nmoore@ala.org