Towards Sustainable Higher Education Through Generative AI and the Virtual Undergraduate Research Laboratories Framework

Authors

  • Paul A. Walcott

Keywords:

higher education institutions, sustainability, AI in education (Microsoft Copilot), Virtual URLs Framework

Abstract

The recently adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which promote universal prosperity, have prompted several higher education institutions to realign their visions and review their curricula and research programmes. In this paper, the results of a quasi-experiment are reported. In this quasi-experiment, two consecutive cohorts of a Caribbean software engineering course authored research papers using the Virtual Undergraduate Research Laboratories framework. The second cohort (treatment group) utilised a generative AI tool to assist in paper authoring, while the first cohort (control group) did not. A significant difference in the mean research paper scores was reported in favour of the treatment group, however there was no significant difference in the mean Turnitin similarity indices for the groups. Given that higher education research is vital for the transformation of economies, this work suggests that AI can successfully scale undergraduate research education/output in a sustainable, cost-effective way thereby promoting the SDGs.

Author Biography

  • Paul A. Walcott

    PAUL WALCOTT, PhD, lectures courses in software engineering and e-commerce at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill. He holds a PhD in Information Engineering from City University, UK. His research interests include teaching and learning using AI; game-based learning; social and collaborative computing; learning, instructional and assistive technologies; online learning communities; digital storytelling; and e-commerce.

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Published

2024-12-30

Issue

No. 28 (2024): Higher Education and Sustainability

Section

Articles