Anthology have created a number of tools within Blackboard Ultra to support staff when they are creating content.
The Design Assistant tools are built using Microsoft’s Responsible AI, and have developed their own Trustworthy AI approach, which is based on the EU AI Act, the OECD AI Principles and NIST AI Risk Management Framework.
The key principles that Anthology’s Trustworthy AI adheres to are:
- Fairness:
- Reliability:
- Humans in Control:
- Transparency and Explainability:
- Privacy, Security and Safety
- Value alignment:
- Accountability:
In essence this means that our data will stay within the University of Dundee’s Blackboard environment. It will NOT be used for any external AI training purposes.
The tool works by taking information you have put in your module, for example, the title, and the description. If you have uploaded material, such as a slide deck then it can also use it, if specifically requested. You remain in control, and must confirm, edit and accept (or reject) the content that’s been generated.
Just as we ask students to acknowledge how they have used AI in assignments, you should let students know how you have used AI when you create content.
Prior to launching this tool, several staff from across the University investigated it, and as a result, we decided to make available some, but not all, of the tools in the Design Assistant. These were approved at Senate Learning and Teaching Committee, May 2024
We have the following tools available:
Image search
This helps you find appropriate images for the module banner and learning modules from Unsplash (a collection of royalty free images).
Note: We have decided not to enable image generation at this stage.
Test Generation
This allows you to generate a range of questions, based on a description, the module title and other available information. You may need to enhance the description to get more useful questions, and you can also direct it to specific resources.
While this includes essay titles, we’d recommend that you use multiple choice, true false etc, for formative quizzes.
You will need to evaluate the appropriateness of the question.
Question Bank generation
This is similar to question generation, however this generates a bank of questions based on a specific item of the course. Blackboard documents often work better than .pdf or other documents. You’ll need to evaluate the questions that are generated.
Journal and Discussion board starters
In order to engage students more with Journals (personal reflections) and Discussions (as a group), you can generate starting questions. You have the option to link these to existing content, and to use Blooms taxonomy to further refine it.
As with the question generation, you need to check to see if the starters are appropriate for your students, and you can customise as required.
Other AI Design tools in Blackboard
There are a number of tools that we have NOT yet enabled:
- Course Generation (designing the Learning Modules for the whole module)
- Rubric generation
- Assignment generation.
- Image generation.
Blackboard continues to add to the tool set available, so new additions will be evaluated as needed.
Important
Evaluate the content that has been generated, for accuracy, for potential bias and to ensure it is at an appropriate level for your student group.
Let students know when you have used AI in your module to create content.
Useful external resources.
- Anthology – all the current Design Assistant tools (n.b. we have not enabled all of these)
- University of Leeds Design Assistant Guide
- Case Study: Blackboard Learn Ultra’s AI Design Assistant JISC Involve (Universities of Northumbria and Westminster)
- Northern Illinois University Guidance (including some useful FAQs)
- Humber College Introduction to AI Design Assistant.