Glenn Setliff (Assistant Dean - Information Technology, Duke University School of Nursing)
Location: Grand Caribbean 8/9
Date: Wednesday, November 20
Time: 10:15 am - 11:15 am
Pass Type:
Pre-Conference Training/Certification Course + Standard Conference Pass, Premium Conference Pass, Standard Conference Pass
Track:
Driving Strategic Decision-Making
Session Type:
Case Study
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: Fundamental/Intermediate
Does this sound familiar? After ChatGPT was introduced to the general public, our IT staff started getting questions about that and various other AI tools, none of which had been vetted or approved for use. As an educational institution, we immediately recognized and started to mitigate the risks associated with the use of generative AI, particularly with student work. As we investigated more, we quickly decided that we needed to shift our thinking. Instead of asking "How do we stop our students from using AI?", we decided to ask the question "How do we encourage our students to use AI responsibly?"
In this session, I will outline the steps we took as an IT support organization to provide the leadership needed for preparing and training our staff for a broad range of AI problem solving, including predictive and generative AI. It began with the IT Service teams, with comprehensive training in machine learning fundamentals through cloud-based AI environments and then moved to more niche training with individual datasets and large language models (LLM) experimentation. Once our IT staff was trained, we created instructional sessions for faculty and staff, led by each member of the IT team, and made formal presentations to each major team within our structure, providing them with access to approved tools and sandbox areas for creating task-based efficiencies. By changing the question and beginning with support in mind, we broadened our outlook on this new technology and put ourselves in a leadership position among similar organizations.
Takeaway
a) AI is rapidly becoming a tool-of-choice for tech-savvy users and it is the responsibility of all IT teams to take a proactive approach in building a support program with fully trained staff and a suite of tools that provides a sandbox for innovation and creativity. b) IT leadership must drive the AI push into the organization and become the central hub of AI/ML activity or they will be left behind. c) It is important that all IT staff receive appropriate training on basic AI/ML and develop a key specialty so that the support program has the breadth required for a diverse user population.