Generative AI and Beyond: Navigating the Present, Shaping the Future

Generative AI and Beyond: Navigating the Present, Shaping the Future

As Generative AI technologies rapidly evolve, their integration into higher education is becoming both exciting and transformative. RMIT has been very active in this space and made a lot of progress in both research and learning and teaching. It is time to reflect what have been achieved and examine what is ahead of us.

The RMIT Professorial Academy is pleased to host this keynote and panel discussion event. This forum brings together leading experts, educators, and innovators in RMIT to delve into the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities presented by Generative AI and other emerging technologies in our dual-sector academic landscape.

The Forum will start with a keynote by Professor Lisa Given, an expert in the ethical and responsible use of AI, followed by a panel discussion on Generative AI and beyond from various perspectives with RMIT leading experts Professor Matt Duckham, Professor Lisa Given, Professor Falk Scholer, Dr Hilary Wheaton as Panelists, and Distinguished Professor Xinghuo Yu as Facilitator. A facilitated Q&A session will follow to engage the audience in an open dialogue about the future of AI in higher education.

Key Discussion Topics include

• The growing role of Generative AI in higher education and impact of its future developments
• Opportunities for enhancing research, learning and teaching processes
• Ethical concerns, academic integrity, and the impact on traditional learning methods
• Challenges in AI deployment, from accessibility to institutional adoption
• Strategies for preparing educators and students to navigate an AI-enhanced future

Location: RMIT Activator, Level 2, Building 98, 102-104 Victoria St, Carlton

Program:

2.30-3.00pm Keynote "Socially responsible AI practices: Moving from hype to hope in higher education"

3 .00-4.00pm Panel Discussion with Q&A

4 .00-4.30pm Light refreshments and networking

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Panellists

Distinguished Professor Xinghuo Yu (Facilitator) is the Inaugural Chair of the RMIT Professorial Academy, and a Vice-Chancellor's Professorial Fellow. His research expertise is in control systems, industrial artificial intelligence, smart energy systems, and cyber-physical-social systems. He has extensive management and leadership experiences in university, industry, and not-for-profit organisations.

Professor Lisa Given is Director of the Social Change Enabling Impact Platform and Professor of Information Sciences at RMIT. Lisa’s research interests include individuals’ information behaviours & users’ experience of technology, community engagement & societal research impact, qualitative and mixed method research designs, and higher education. Lisa is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Professor Matt Duckham is Director of the Information in Society Enabling Impact Platform and Professor of Geospatial Sciences, with expertise in spatial computing, GeoAI, and geovisualization. His research is in the area of distributed spatial computing with uncertain spatial data, with applications to transportation and health, defense, emergency management, and environmental monitoring.

Professor Falk Scholer is the Chair of RMIT’s Research Committee, a Professor in Information Retrieval, and the Deputy Director of the RMIT Centre for Information Discovery and Data Analytics (CIDDA). His research is in the area of information retrieval, with particular interests in Web and enterprise search engines, evaluation of information retrieval systems, user analytics, interactive search, relevance and user perceptions, fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics of computing, and document summarisation.

Dr Hilary Wheaton is the Principal Advisor, Educational Practice Learning and Teaching. Her role focuses on supporting University-wide strategic initiatives, enabling their implementation with a focus on pedagogy, guidance, and system improvements. She has been an advisor and proponent for various frameworks including curriculum architecture, assessment, academic integrity and curriculum mapping and management. Her recent research has focused on the intersection between technical and pedagogical practices for staff and students, including broader industry initiatives such as the TELAS reference group to support its establishment. As an academic, her discipline interest is internet/cultural studies, including persona, celebrity and computer games.

Host or Publisher RMIT Professorial Academy