Upskilling, Reskilling, or Retiring: Responding to the Advent of AI

The anticipated replacement of human workers with Generative AI (GenAI) apps has begun. Earlier this year IBM announced about 8,000 layoffs amid an AI-powered initiative. As reported by Byte magazine, Cisco is among a group of other tech companies that most recently announced layoffs: “Despite tech conglomerate Cisco posting $10.3 billion in profits last year,…

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AI in a Lingering Age of Loneliness Among Students

The COVID-19 Pandemic brought about greater awareness of an even larger epidemic, one of loneliness in America. In higher education, it is incumbent on us to help our learners with overcoming the pain and other ill-effects of this condition. The World Health Organization has staggering reports on mental health around the world: In 2019, 1…

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Our Responsibility to Teach AI to our Students

Put aside any concerns you may have about student use of GenAI in your classes. It is our urgent responsibility to teach our students now how to use the technology in their discipline; their careers depend on us. It is not the academic integrity issue that looms the largest in higher education use of Generative…

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New Distance Education Regulations Proposed by ED Includes Required Attendance-Taking, Additional Reporting – Public Comment Open Until August 23 | Policy Matters (July 2024)

Major Updates New Distance Education Regulations Proposed by ED Includes Required Attendance-Taking, Additional Reporting – Public Comment Open Until August 23 UPCEA Members Take Note, and Make a Comment! The US Department of Education recently released the proposed regulations for Distance Education, Return to Title IV, and TRIO. In another major announcement, they signaled in…

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The Synthetic Professor

We have reached a point in the development of Generative AI (GenAI) that synthetic AI professors are poised to enter academe. We have been following the rapid development of knowledge and abilities of GenAI over the past couple of years. OpenAI Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mira Murati recently gave some additional clarity on its capabilities.…

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AI Reshapes Higher Ed and Society at Large by 2035

There are important steps to be taken in higher education as we prepare for the deep society-wide changes that will take place in the next five to ten years.  In general, these columns have focused on the incremental actions that should be taken to benefit higher education institutions and their constituencies as they adapt to…

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Higher Education Has Not Been Forgotten by Generative AI

The Generative AI (GenAI) revolution has not ignored higher education, a whole host of tools are available now and more revolutionary tools are on the way. Beginning with concern over the potential for plagiarism and cheating by way of the use of GenAI chatbots, higher education has paid attention to the development of this technology.…

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How and When Might the Great AI Job Replacement Take Place?

While there are isolated examples of wholesale layoffs among a few individual companies, the broad scale loss of jobs has not yet materialized.  So far, the impact of Generative AI (GenAI) on the general workforce has been to enhance productivity rather than to reduce the overall number of jobs. Of course, we are barely into…

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