In 2022 the controversy over the release of ChatGPT showed how artificial intelligence is already shaping the future of education. Yet, the rapidly escalating introduction of AI in education is occurring with inadequate policy support. Additionally, there is a lack of stakeholder input into decisions about the use of AI in education. It is crucial that policies be developed to harness the transformative potential of AI in fair and ethical ways, shaping its development and use in ways that do not exacerbate harms for vulnerable populations in education. There is an acute need to provide education stakeholders with opportunities to contribute to the development of such policies - from legal regulations to local level guidelines- that both respond to and shape the use of AI.

Utilising social science and data science approaches, this project aims to democratise policy about AI in education by building tools to monitor policies, and developing collaborative policy making methods. The expected outcomes include publicly available policy resources to anticipate, and respond to, the role of AI in education, and participatory frameworks for policy making. The benefits include informed stake holder engagement, and concrete policy recommendations that are globally relevant and adaptable to the Australian context.

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Research questions

RQ1: How can we help policy makers and stakeholders better anticipate, and more rapidly respond to, the opportunities and risks of using of AI in education?

RQ2: How can a broad range of stakeholders be engaged in decision making to help anticipate and address conflicting views on AI used in education?

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Aims & Methods

1.    Develop a digital global policy observatory to track and analyse policies about AI in education. We will produce new tools and analyses for tracking and analysing regulations and policies that address the AI systems increasingly entering various systems of education globally.

2.    Create participatory experiments in policy making to inform the development and use of AI in education. Using participatory methodologies, we will build new approaches to policy making with education stakeholders, that aim to respond to the introduction of new AI systems in education in a timely manner, as well as anticipate and guide the way in which AI is developed for education.

3.    Generate democratised policy guidance for AI in education. We will combine the outcomes of Aims 1 and 2, using collaborative policymaking processes, to develop guidance that enhances opportunities and addresses existing and potential harms from using AI in education.

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Articles

Swist, T., Gulson, K. N., Benn,C., Kitto, K., Knight, S., & Zhang, V. (2024). A technical democracy designexperiment: Making the UK exam algorithm controversy game. Design Studies, 91,101245.

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