So, you like our FMS TEL blog and you’d like to have something similar. How do you do it?
Go to blogs.ncl.ac.uk. You will see the following page with a choice to create a personal blog or a team blog. FMS TEL use the Team Blog as everyone in our team contributes to it.
Click on the button for your choice of blog. You will then be asked to sign in.
Team Blog
For a Team Blog, if you are not already logged in, you will have to login using your University email (username@newcastle.ac.uk) and password. You will then be presented with a form to request your Team Blog.
For a Personal Blog, if you are not already logged in, you will just enter your username and password . You will then be presented with a form to register your personal blog site.
Rules and Policies
Please make sure you read the university Rules and Policies regarding publishing content on university servers and applications.
We were recently invited to present this blog, and our experiences running it at the Directors of Education forum. We have recorded this presentation as a video for anyone who may be interested in starting their own blog within their team.
The presentation covers:
Identifying needs and measuring impact
Things to consider before getting started
How to keep a blog running over a long period of time
Maybe you have deleted a lot of text and changed your mind, or decided you wanted it after all. Maybe you undid some of your work but changed your mind. How can you get it back without starting from scratch? You can use Undo to reverse your last action, or Redo to put it back. You can undo and redo up to 20 of your last actions in Microsoft applications. All actions must be undone or redone in the order they were done.
The Method
UNDO
Windows: Ctrl + Z Mac: Command + Z
REDO
Windows Microsoft and other software: Ctrl + Y Adobe Software: Ctrl + Shift + Z
Mac All software: Command + Shift + Z
The Result
Your text is restored without you having to type it all in again. Whatever action you previously undid you can redo (there are exceptions though, and the Undo and Redo commands will be unavailable if the previous actions cannot be undone or repeated, e.g. clicking a command on the File tab in Microsoft applications.)
We are always hoping to improve the blog and make it more relevant to our readers. Please take 5 minutes to share your opinions about the blog and what you’d like to see.
There has been a lot of discussion in the FMS TEL office about ChatGPT over the past couple of weeks. Michael and Eleanor have spent some time putting this post together to help our readers to learn a bit more about ChatGPT, and to catch up on the discourse around it in HE in general.
We used ChatGPT to generate an about page for the blog last week, which you may have seen. It provides a good example of an introduction for a website. It feels somewhat generic, it has gotten a few things wrong, and expresses itself a little strangely in places. At the same time, it’s a decent starting point to work from.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is one of many advanced Artificial Intelligence models which has been trained to understand inputs (e.g. questions) in natural language (hence ‘chat’) and answer them. Interacting with ChatGPT feels similar to interacting with a chatbot or virtual assistant on the surface, but the technologies are completely different.
How does Chat GPT work?
The data that ChatGPT draws from is an offline dataset which was created in 2021. The exact content of the dataset is not clear, however ChatGPT is able to formulate responses to a massive range of topics, so it is safe to assume the dataset is enormous, and most likely taken from public internet sites (i.e. not password-protected sites). Part of the training process involved feeding computer code into the model, which helped it learn logic and syntax – something that is present in natural languages in the form of grammar. Feedback was also given to the model to help it improve – this is called ‘supervised learning’.
Some of the language is somewhat technical, but the summary is quite clear!
While ChatGPT can produce extended responses drawing on its huge dataset, it doesn’t understand what it is producing – similar to a parrot repeating after you. It can mimic the sounds but has no true understanding of the meaning.
What are people saying about ChatGPT and University Education?
Assessment Security
With its ability to generate text that looks like a human wrote it, it is natural to be worried that students may use ChatGPT for assessed work. Many automated text editors and translators are already in this market, though they work in a different way. Tools like Word’s spellchecker and Grammarly can both be employed to boost writing skills – though these do not generate text. ChatGPT is different in this respect, and it is free, quick, and easy for anyone to use.
“…The big change is that this technology is wrapped up in a very nice interface where you can interact with it, almost like speaking to another human. So it makes it available to a lot of people.”
Dr Thomas Lancaster, Imperial College London in The Guardian
Assessment security has always been a concern, and as with any new technology, there will be ways we can adapt to its introduction. Some people are already writing apps to detect AI text, and OpenAI themselves are exploring watermarking their AI’s creations. Google Translate has long been a challenge for language teachers with its ability to generate translations, but a practiced eye can spot the deviations from a student’s usual style, or expected skill level.
Within HE, clear principles are already in place around plagiarism, essay mills and other academic misconduct, and institutions are updating their policies all the time. One area in which ChatGPT does not perform well is in the inclusion of references and citations – a cornerstone of academic integrity for many years.
Authentic assessment may be another element of the solution in some disciplines, and many institutions have been doing work in this area for some time, our own included. On the other hand for some disciplines, the ability to write structured text is a key learning outcome and is inherently an authentic way to assess.
Consider ChatGPT’s ability to summarise and change the style of the language it uses.
Could ChatGPT be used to generate lay summaries of research for participants in clinical trials?
Would it do as good a job as a clinician?
How much time could be saved by generating these automatically and then simply tweaking the text to comply with good practice?
The good practice would still need to be taught and assessed, but perhaps this is a process that will become standard practice in the workplace.
Digital skills, critical thinking and accessibility
Prompting AI is certainly a skill in itself – just as knowing what to ask Google to get your required answer. ChatGPT reacts well to certain prompts such as ‘let’s go step by step’ which tells it you’d like a list of steps. You can use that prompt to get a broad view of the task ahead. A clear example of this would be to get a structure for a business plan, or outline what to learn in a given subject. As a tool, ChatGPT can be helpful in collating information and combining it into an easily readable format. This means that time spent searching can instead be spent reading. At the same time, it is important to be conscious of the fact that ChatGPT does not understand what it is writing and does not check its sources for bias, or factual correctness.
ChatGPT in its current free-to-use form prompts us to change how we think about many elements of HE. While naturally it creates concerns around assessment security, we have always been able to meet these challenges in the past by applying technical solutions, monitoring grades, and teaching academic integrity. Discussions are already ongoing in every institution on how to continue this work, with authentic assessment coming to the fore as a way of breaking our heavy reliance on the traditional essay.
As a source of student assistance, ChatGPT offers a wealth of tools to help students gather information and access it more easily. It is also a challenge for students’ critical thinking skills, just like the advent the internet or Wikipedia. It is well worth taking the time to familiarise oneself with the technology, and to explore how it may be applied in education, and in students’ future workplaces.
Resources
Try ChatGPT – you will need to make an account with OpenAI and possibly wait quite a while as the service is very busy.
Try DALL-E – this AI generates images based on your inputs.
In 2022 a task group was set up to review our centrally supported audience interaction system, Ombea. As part of our remit, we are establishing user requirements for a system of this type, and inviting other suppliers to demonstrate their own AIS systems.
All the systems that will be demonstrated are established suppliers with experience of working with higher education institutions and could be viable options to replace Ombea, therefore colleague opinion of the available options is very important. After initial consultation, we have five suppliers who are interested in sharing their product.
To book a place to attend any of the demonstrations or to request links to the recordings please complete this booking form. After attending the demonstrations you will be sent a short form to complete to tell us what you thought of the system.
Any queries about the demonstrations or AIS review should be sent to the project team via ltds@ncl.ac.uk
