News

New task force on AI in NRW education

[25.09.2023]

What opportunities does AI offer for the education sector? What are the risks of use? And how can politics promote the productive and trustworthy use of AI tools? Questions like these are being addressed by a newly formed task force made up of academia, practitioners, and several NRW state ministries. CATALPA provides two of the members.

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A committee of scientists, politicians and practitioners is working on the responsible integration of artificial intelligence into educational processes. Among them: three experts from FernUni.

What opportunities does AI offer for the education sector? What are the risks of use? And how can politics promote the productive and trustworthy use of AI tools? A newly founded task force is addressing questions like these.

The task force brings together experts from science and practice with representatives from the NRW State Chancellery, the Ministry of Culture and Science, and the Ministry of Education of North Rhine-Westphalia. Together they develop strategies for the implementation of AI innovations in schools, universities and further education organizations in the task force "Artificial Intelligence in Education". No less than three members of FernUniversität were appointed to the committee to contribute their expertise from different research disciplines.

Supporting learners individually

One of the experts is Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich W. Hesse. He is Scientific Director of the research center CATALPA - Center of Advanced Technology for Assisted Learning and Predictive Analytics. The central scientific institution of the FernUniversität deals with opportunities of artificial intelligence and computer-based learning in higher education. "AI applications can be used to support learners individually, adapted to their respective personal prerequisites," Hesse said. "This personalized learning can contribute to greater educational equity." Hesse will play a key role within the task force in strategy development on AI in higher education. "The extensive experience we have gained at CATALPA at FernUniversität contributes to this. In a real-lab situation, researchers here work on technical and didactic developments in practice."

The Task Force on AI in Education

The task force is coordinated by the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS), which also initiated the association. In addition to the experts from the FernUniversität, the committee includes representatives from other NRW research institutions (Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, KI.NRW Competence Platform, Research Center Trustworthy Data Science and Security, Center for Science Didactics at the Ruhr University Bochum, KI:edu. nrw), on the other hand from the Ministries for Culture and Science, for Schools and Education as well as the State Chancellery of North Rhine-Westphalia and from educational practice: the Grimme Institute, the State Association VHS NRW, the Fraunhofer Institute IAIS (AI4schools), the District Government of Münster and the State Working Group for Catholic Adult and Family Education in NRW.

Also a member of CATALPA is Prof. Dr. Hannes Schröter, who is also on the task force. He is Professor of Adult Cognition and Learning at the Faculty of Psychology at the FernUniversität. At the same time, he heads the "Teaching, Learning, Counseling" department at the German Institute for Adult Education - Leibniz Center for Lifelong Learning (DIE) in Bonn. In this capacity, he has now been appointed to the task force, where he is primarily concerned with the significance of AI for continuing education.

Fundamental legal issues and data protection

Jun.-Prof. Dr. Hannah Ruschemeier from the Faculty of Law at FernUniversität is also on board. She is conducting research on various topics related to digitization with legal implications, particularly regulation. "From my point of view, the goal of the task force should be to delineate a sensible use for AI in education, which should of course be designed in a legally compliant manner," she says. "My expertise relates to fundamental rights issues as well as data protection in particular."

In the coming weeks, the task force will identify needs for action and regulation from educational practice and develop concrete proposals for state policy measures for the responsible integration of AI in teaching and learning processes.