Scripps College faculty and graduate student lead AI panel discussion at AEJMC Southeast Colloquium

The Scripps College of Communication is leading the way when it comes to use of artificial intelligence (AI) in graduate higher education. Three faculty members and one graduate student were part of a panel called “Artificial Intelligence and Originality in Graduate Work: Challenges and Opportunities” at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Southeast Colloquium in March. The panel discussion examined how the emergence of AI technologies in recent years has created many opportunities and challenges for graduate education.

“I definitely think the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism is leading the way in AI use in higher education,” said Journalism Professor Victoria LaPoe, who was one of the panelists. “It really gave me goosebumps because the room for our panel was packed with people taking notes, nodding and asking questions. �� is really ahead in its thinking when it comes to graduate policy.”

Others from the Scripps College who participated in the panel included Journalism Associate Director for Graduate Studies Jatin Srivastava, who served as the moderator, Visual Communication Associate Professor Adonis Durado and Graduate Student Quang Nguyen.

“Most of us use Grammarly and Spellcheck to help us write better or make our writing more polished,” said Srivastava. “Now that generative AI is available, we can write a lot of things originally after being provided instruction. Is that problematic? These are the kinds of issues that we discussed.”

“A lot of the discussion was about what is acceptable when it comes to graduate work and AI, and what are the challenges that we face in the future,” said LaPoe. “I have implemented AI in my Gender, Race and Class Course by having students use AI and then apply fact checking and critical thinking. It allows them to evaluate sourcing and teaches them media literacy.”

The graduate student on the panel, Quang Nguyen, was the first PhD student in journalism at �� to use AI on his dissertation. Nguyen put a disclaimer on the dissertation for transparency and protection.

“My dissertation used an AI model to analyze news to find a pattern over a three-year period,” said Nguyen. “This kind of content analysis of a three-year period would take several weeks by hand, but with AI it only took three hours.”

Nguyen also used AI to help overcome the language barrier.

“If I write it without AI, it takes so much more time. I write it in Vietnamese and then have to translate into English,” said Nguyen. “But if I put the ideas down in Vietnamese and use Google Translate to put it into English, it connects the ideas more smoothly. I used AI for polishing.”

“AI can create a more level playing field in academic research,” said Srivastava. “Most academic work in the world is done in the English language, which is a disadvantage for those whose native language is not English.”

Srivastava says he’s thrilled that so many faculty members in the Scripps College are talking about the issues regarding AI and figuring out where it works in the graduate space.

“I think different institutions are working on AI in different ways and at the Scripps College of Communication we are fortunate to have a community of faculty and students who are working on similar things at the same time,” said Srivastava. “We are at the forefront. I can say we have the resources we need to be leaders in some aspects of AI in education in the fields of journalism, mass communication and communication.”

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