Author: CIC-Editor

Could conversational AI serve as rigorous thinking partners to stretch our reasoning, deepen reflection, and foster the intellectual agility needed to navigate turbulent times? CIC's Director Simon Buckingham Shum was honoured recently to contribute to The Hong Kong Polytechnic Educational Design Centre's International Dialogues on Educational Transformation, with a seminar and discussion on his current work considering the role that conversational GenAI may play as we grapple with the global p...
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CIC is delighted to welcome Prof. Linda Castañeda (University of Murcia) as a visiting scholar June-September... Linda is Professor of Educational Technology, University of Murcia, Spain, who is visiting us to learn how we conceive, design, pilot and scale conversational GenAI for learning at UTS. Linda’s research explores how people learn, teach and make educational decisions in contexts of technological change. Her work spans personal learning, academic development, digital competence, edu...
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The hot news from Bergen, where CIC has a team participating in the International Conference on Learning Analytics & Knowledge (LAK26), is that Lisa Lim has received international recognition by the Society for Learning Analytics Research, picking up the SoLAR Emerging Scholar Award for Australasia 👏👏👏 Here she is with CIC colleagues Ben Hicks and Simon Buckingham Shum, with CIC alumnus Kirsty Kitto sneaking into the frame — now Professor of AI in Education at the University of Bergen, ho...
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As the evidence from generative AI in higher education starts to roll in, it is becoming clear that “frictionless” GenAI often undermines learning. GenAI products designed to minimise the user’s effort to obtain a polished answer or document undermine intellectual work such as questioning assumptions, reframing problems, or revising claims. As this interaction paradigm establishes itself in higher education (surveys consistently report student usage at approximately 80%) the consequences of uns...
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Vincent Creighton asks if conversational AI can coach leaders ​As an Entrepreneurial PhD candidate at the UTS Connected Intelligence Centre (CIC) and an executive leader, Vincent Creighton is exploring how conversational AI can act as an effective leadership coach. His research focuses on creating a safe space where leaders can practice dealing with complexity, question unexamined assumptions, confront systemic challenges, and practise new ways of thinking and acting amidst the polycrisis. V...
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The UTS Health Faculty's GenAI-ENHANCE Summit provides an annual snapshot of the leading edge applied research that's testing the potential of GenAI to deepen learning in their diverse health programs, as well as how GenAI is changing professional practice. CIC's Simon Buckingham Shum was honoured to give the keynote, painting a broader contextual picture, before the program deep-dived into specific contexts. Continuing the theme of his recent work, he explored the intersection of 3 concepts:...
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CIC's Lisa-Angelique Lim was engaged on multiple fronts at ASCILITE: here's the lowdown... ASCILITE25 (Nov 30 - Dec 3) brought together the Asia-Pacific region's leading Educational Technology voices to Adelaide. This year's focus on AI exemplifies the conference's ongoing commitment to addressing the most pressing and transformative issues in higher education. As the region’s most established and influential gathering for educational technology research and practice, ASCILITE provides a platfo...
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What does it take to get Copilot working well with finance data? New work led by Shane Lee sheds light on the “invisible labour” often required for AI productivity gains... We all recognise the marketing discourse around GenAI promising staff empowerment and rapid productivity gains. However, Shane Lee’s work injects a dose of reality, documenting how sociotechnical realities on the ground can introduce ‘friction’ before such gains are realised, requiring various “workarounds” (an established c...
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When did you last talk to an AI about something you haven’t discussed with another person? I'm delighted to have been invited to join the PhD team for Meg Price, based in the UTS Transdisciplinary School, where she is supervised by Barbara Doran and Paulina Larocca. "We’re at a strange moment in human history. We’re the first generation forming relationships with AI at scale. We’re making daily choices - often unconsciously - about when to turn to AI versus humans. These aren’t just one-off d...
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