Report

Artificial intelligence in tertiary education pilots

From a chatbot for student queries to a virtual reality interview simulator, read about the outcomes of our completed artificial intelligence pilot projects.

We aim to support our members with the ethical and effective adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance education. A key area of tour work is running pilots of promising AI tools. Here you can read the outcomes of these projects, exploring the strengths and promises of various products – see what AI tools work well and in what circumstances.

Our pilots are open to Jisc member institutions, all information regarding upcoming pilots is shared via the centre's JiscMail channel and blog.

Student Voice

Student Voice provide a service using machine learning to automatically analyse student comments. This can be used to process large amounts of student feedback meaning more time is available to act on that feedback and improve student experience. In this pilot, we evaluated participant’s experiences with the Student Voice service in comparison to their existing methods for analysing National Student Survey (NSS) data.

Read the full Student Voice report (pdf).

Graide

Graide is an end to end assessment tool which utilises AI to assist with marking and feedback for STEM subjects. Graide suggests feedback to the marker based on previously graded answers, and continuously improves its suggestions based on the marker’s input. In this pilot, we evaluated how Graide might reduce time spent marking whilst improving the quality of feedback.

Read the outcomes from our Graide pilot.

Chatbot

Our chatbot, based on Bolton College’s Ada, was piloted by four UK colleges. The chatbot was tailored for each institution to respond to a range of common student queries with the intention of improving student experience and reducing staff workload.

Read the outcomes from our chatbot pilot.

Bodyswaps

Bodyswaps combines virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence to create immersive simulations which help learners to develop their soft skills. This pilot was undertaken as a roadshow, which visited five institutions where participating students experienced Bodyswaps’ job simulator modules.

Read the full Bodyswaps pilot report (pdf).

Anywyse

Anywyse empowers educators to produce engaging audio-based learning material (called ‘Wysers’) for their students. Through the use of AI, existing learning materials – workbooks, reading materials and more, can be transformed into exciting, podcast-style modules, thus expanding the ways in which students can learn. Through this pilot we wanted to help colleges enhance their skills in AI implementation while producing fun, engaging content for learners.

Read the outcomes from our Anywyse pilot.

FeedbackFruits

For this pilot, institutions explored FeedbackFruits’ Automated Feedback Tool, a feature that uses AI to improve students’ academic writing by automating feedback on structural elements like citations, academic style, grammar, and overall structure.

This feature frees teachers to focus on higher-order cognitive skills, allowing them to spend more time on comprehension and critical thinking. Some of the pilot’s participants also explored FeedbackFruits’ Peer Assessment tool.

Read the FeedbackFruits pilot report.

TeacherMatic

TeacherMatic is a tool that uses generative AI to help teachers create resources and teaching materials. Their platform provides a suite of generators that can help create a variety of essential materials for educators, such lesson plans, learning activities, quizzes, and more.

Further education

Through this pilot participating colleges will try TeacherMatic and explore whether it can save time and assist with workload.

Read the TeacherMatic FE pilot report.

Higher education

In this pilot, participating universities tried TeacherMatic and evaluated the AI tool’s impact and suitability in the HE sector.

Read the TeacherMatic HE report.

About the author

Michael Webb
Michael Webb
Director of AI

I lead our work supporting the responsible and effective adoption of artificial intelligence across the education sector, through a range of pilots, advice, guidance, and community support activities.