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Join us as we explore the dynamic world of higher education at the University of Aberdeen. In each episode, you'll hear insightful discussions with educators who share their practice, highlighting what worked well and what didn't. Whether you're an academic, supporting teaching and learning, a student, or simply passionate about education, this podcast offers valuable perspectives and thought-provoking conversations to keep you informed and inspire you to try something new. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with the Centre for Academic Development as we’d love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 [00:00:14] Here today I'm joined by Chris Trace and Kaya Holder who are from Keath.ai. And thanks so much for your time chatting to me, Chris. We've known each other for a long time. We've both come from sort of veterinary education backgrounds and also from the digital education backgrounds. But if I could just ask you to just say a few words about yourself and your role and the same for yourself Kaya.
Speaker 2 [00:00:38] Cool. I’d be happy to. Thank you for having us. So, as you said, my name is Chris Trice. I'm the chief academic officer for Keath.ai previously. So just before that, I was the Head of Digital Learning at the University of Surrey, which was, um, essentially looking at the use of technology across all parts of the um courses or faculties. And before that I was a teaching academic within Veterinary Education. Um, so, yeah, varied backgrounds that this led me here. Kaya, on you go.
Speaker 3 [00:01:07] Sure. Thank you for having us. Uh, my name's Kaya. So my background is a mix of digital technologies and also education. So I guess to. Yeah, to kick off, I was a secondary school teacher and teacher of media. So, yeah, just intrinsically it lends itself to digital education and the early sort of onset of online assessment. And also just at tech in general. Um, in the last few years since finishing up on jet, I've, um, transitioned into edtech. So before coming to Keath, I worked at the University of Surrey as a digital analyst and looking at processes and how we can automate workflows. And then since then I've been at Cat Band as well. So I've also had quite a varied background in terms of educational, I guess, companies and milestones, but essentially the intersection of education and technology as well, I find myself.
Speaker 1 [00:01:56] Great. Yeah, it’ll be good to know at least a bit about how Keath.ai came about.
Speaker 2 [00:02:04] Absolutely. I can certainly give you a bit of a potted history. Um, so, Keath, I was, um, co-founded by some colleagues from the University of Sussex. So a professor and a, um, PhD student at the time, as well as a colleague from, um, a prior background. So, um, Joey Imran and Professor Yu Zhong, uh, they had been looking at AI and what it could do from before ChatGPT I was a thing before then. And just in case people aren't aware. Um, so machine learning and different techniques for really thinking about assessment. And when ChatGPT did land, it really opened up, um, the everyone's really minds to what could be achieved with generative AI. So that was really, I guess, the the launch in the public consciousness of, of that aspect of it. So a lot of work was being done, um, then at Surrey to build a our own kind of bespoke language model, um, which is called case. Uh, so the key of valuation and assessment tools, um, um, and that, uh, really kind of started pulling together and making possible the ability to mark students work. Um, and the idea from there was, okay, well, could we fine tune this? Could we create ways for people to be able to mark work that's really, really accurate. That's based on how you've marked it, the kind of feedback you've provided before. Um, so that was the initial concept. We've gone off into lots of additional features and ideas from there. Um, but the company has essentially grown, um, from strength to strength. So it's become a spin out from the University of Surrey, officially launched, um, launched in not a bad venue at the House of Lords in Westminster. Um, very fancy. Uh, and it's now, you know, essentially going global. We've got about 30, 35 different universities around the world trialling us currently with plans to, um, you know, essentially take over the world. Of course, that would be lovely. But the idea fundamentally is always going back to, um, empowering educators and unleashing their potential. Um, all of the founders and everybody, pretty much since that's join the company has had a background in education, and we've all been there where we're a frustrated educator trying to do our marketing, trying to write the feedback that we'd love to have time to do, and we never quite have time for it. Um, so this is a tool that, you know, is of its time. We hope it's going to help, uh, unleash what educators could do and really help students push forward in their learning too.
Speaker 1 [00:04:38] It's great. I mean, that's fantastic to launch in the House of Lords. And, you know, there's huge potential here. And I think that whilst, um, you know, I should say designing around for a long time and also then there's generative AI and then the launch of ChatGPT. But if we think about, um. Education and technology around education. We know ourselves, don't we, that we always see that it's really about what you're trying to achieve and what can the technology do to support us to do that. And that's what I think this can be particularly helpful was rather than, you know, we have this technology. What will we do with that? Right. And I know from years of being in the education sector, uh, that it's a struggle to, you know, do the detailed feedback and the timely feedback, um, just from a work perspective. But we also know as a sector that when we look across the board, typically in terms of our national student survey, um, the areas where we need to improve as a sector is around assessment and feedback to help our students to have that quality experience, but also to improve their outcomes and to get that feedback to them in a timely way, and also in enough detail that helps them to progress and to be successful. And for me, this is where leveraging this type of technology will help us achieve that. Um, so, uh, Kaya just wanted to sort of bring you and, um, around that piece where I can imagine that to an extent, this is new for people. Some people, um, and also that it's moving at real pace. So there will be some concerns around, um, the use of, of AI and in education. And I just wondered what your thoughts are around how we could maybe alleviate some of those concerns.
Speaker 3 [00:06:48] Sure. Um, I think it's really valid for teachers and education to be wary of changes. Ultimately, it does impact the day to day and to not know how it serves, you know, consideration. However, in the time I've been teaching or not been teaching since, um, we've had things like MOOCs. So online courses come and go. You've had different technologies like AR, VR. So if you take those as examples, they have come onto the market and some have failed, some have succeeded. But ultimately it depends on the skillset of the staff who use and utilise them and see them as tools. I don't see like a VR, you know, equipment set, etc. any different to perhaps a calculator or perhaps, you know, scientific equipment in the classroom. They're just additional things that you can use from your repertoire to make your teaching and learning sort of real life and as well as fun and informative as possible. So I think it depends on your viewpoint. I don't see them as threats, so I see them as things that, you know, humans aka teachers, educators can use to enhance what they do, not to replicate it or to mimic it or even to take it from them. And I think that distinction sometimes gets lost in translation. It's not there to replace people. It's there to enhance in the same way that we expect students to learn to, you know, be flexible in their learning or to learn asynchronously. This isn't something that's innate to them, but it allows teachers to, yeah, to add to what they're doing, not take away.
Speaker 1 [00:08:15] I think that's really helpful. And you used the word enhance there. And that's exactly it's just it's spot on isn't it? And it's about how we can make improvements. And those improvements right are for our students but also improvements for our staff and to help our staff experience. Um. People are motivated to be in education. To help others and to do our best. Uh, but to do our best can be challenging at times under. Constrained resources. And so this is where technology can help us to do our best and be better, um, whilst maintaining that that academic control, if you like that academic oversight, it's not to take away from that.
Um, it's really interesting that you've you've got a lot of, um, interest and, and using, um, your technology here. And I just wondered if you could just say a little bit more about what you think's going on in the sector, uh, and terms of the transformation around education. And, and I wondered if you've got some thoughts on that, Chris?
Speaker 2 [00:09:32] Yeah, I know many and varied. Um, so I think, uh, I feel like there hasn't ever been a time when the sector isn't transforming in one way or another. Uh, so obviously, you know, Covid was a huge acceleration in the digital transformation of what we do as a sector. Um, AI has then been another big hit to that. And I guess for many, a lot of people were still reeling, to be honest, from Covid, um, from the sudden shift towards online towards zoom as and rumours, um, having to upskill staff in how to do that, things like that instead of just relying on in-person teaching. Um, so that, you know, there is limited resource in the system, um, limited capacity. One of the descriptions I, I love a metaphor. We can do another podcast on use of metaphor is another time, if you like. Um, and one of the ones I use a lot is that our sector feels like Heathrow Airport a lot of the time, which is essentially operating at something like 98% of its optimum capacity all the time. And what that means is anything goes wrong. Um, it has a big impact really quickly. It's not a sector where, I don't know, some small airport somewhere that operates at 10% capacity. And if something goes wrong, it really doesn't matter because there's a spare runway and there's all spare slots. So yeah, for me that's, I think, an important context. I think that's why the sector perhaps hasn't been able to move as fast or in as coordinated a way as it would have liked to, because there's there's still essentially a, a debt we're paying in terms of resource. And, um, for many years people weren't able to do the research they wanted because they were suddenly having to recreate lots of teaching materials and things like that. So I guess in general then I I've seen some phases that we've gone through, and certainly for the first year or so, I think pretty much all I heard about was, um, very much kind of a defensive reaction towards AI, and it was all about assessment, security and all about thinking, how do we stop students just going straight to ChatGPT? Others are available. But that was the only one ever anybody ever talked about. Um, and putting in their work and getting a response out.
Um, I think it it as a sector, we have moved past just that although some people are still there. Um, people are also, I guess, looking towards perhaps central organisations for more in terms of driving policy. Um, and that is it's coming out now. There's some lovely things from um JISC. We've got some great AI guidance, those advanced guidance guidances, um, the Russell Group produced some, uh, kind of principles, which I think are good. And, and so yeah, that is filtering out. Um, there are still, you know, some I see some institutions are further heads than others. Some have detailed principles and guidance and policies and staff and student training across this, and they've embedded it into their, um, kind of education systems. Others have gone even further and have appointed dedicated staff to do this. So I was, um, very happy to meet the UK's first PDC Pro-Vice-Chancellor of AI from De Montfort University. I think it's a great appointment.
So there's that starting to invest in this. Um, again, another thing that's hampered, this is the one of the sectors, the unsung heroes, one of the third space professionals really in UK is digital education professionals. And they're often, uh, I call it third space because they kind of sit between academics often and they sit between professional services. They do a bit of both. It's your learning technologists. It's your, um, digital learning architects, perhaps, and whatever that might be called. A lot of I just fell in their lap. Um, and if they're still trying to cope with digitising things and then they're also trying to do I, it's been really good to see where some universities have invested in that. And. I really dedicated resource because ultimately, yeah, we need to get to a point, I think, where this is a new reality. Um, the the world is like the toothpaste is out of the tube analogy. Um, it is it's really difficult to put toothpaste back in the tube. I've tried just to test it. It is tricky and messy.
Um, and so, you know, the future world where our graduates are going to go out to AI is going to be pervasive. So we need to upskill them in how to use that in a mature, responsible way. Therefore, we need to educate our students to do that. We need to educate our staff. Um, and to do that, we need to put in place guidance and all of these things. So I think as a sector, we're getting there is my long story short.
Um, there's some great practice. My top advice is always if you're ever struggling with anything, go out and look first, because there'll be somebody who's already tried this and that will be willing to share. Um, and yeah, come together. There's a lot of really good communities for sharing this. Oxford University have a really great, um, group that I think they almost stole my acronym. So they've called themselves. Uh, I think it's AIEIO, or something. AI that has all the vowels, all the vowels. Artificial intelligence education at Oxford University I think, I think, AIOU that's a great global community now of people that are sharing practice and also sharing research findings, um, so that there's increasingly an evidence base towards student use and staff use on um, in assessment, in teaching and learning, all different aspects. So yeah, get out there. Have a look. Find out what others are doing.
Speaker 1 [00:15:20] Well that's brilliant. There's lots of good stuff in there. I mean, one thing that we can do as a sector is evaluate and have done and particularly around technology over the years where we've looked at the potential, um, as a sector, we have evaluated. And I think that's the key point here is as we go through this, we evaluate it as well. Until you meet a really good point about how sometimes things do work. In fact, a lot of time things don't work. And we're not great as a sector of, you know, embracing failure and failure is important to learn. Note it's really interesting because pretty much the majority of what we do around research is failure. Um, and we learn from that. And that's why we do it. And I think we need to just continue to embrace that and bring that into the education piece. Obviously, we can manage the risk around that, but we try things and if they work, that's great. But if they don't work, that's also great because we've learned from that and we can share that. We will never know if something for will work or not work if we don't try. And then also then we can, um, improve through evaluation as well. And I think I feel like we've come into our own though, in the digital space because I remember 20 years ago at the University of Edinburgh. So actually were really forward thinking at the time. But but I would say some of my colleagues would say to me this, this is a fad. Now I'm kind of thinking I might send a few emails out just to ask them if they still think it's a fad digital.
But in all seriousness, the world around us is digital. The world will always be digital, the world will become more digital, and this is a game changer for all sectors. However, my experience in the sector and again is mixed, but predominantly we are lagging and we are behind the curve on digital. So our digital infrastructure is not where it needs to be, which then impacts how we implement AI around the access to data, etc. systems talking to each other. But also we're not haven't embraced digital to the extent that other sectors have. So perhaps we could see this is maybe more of a shock to us.
And so our students are and have lived in a digital world predominantly, um, particularly the majority of our undergraduate students. So we need to, um, be in that space with them and meet them where they are. But that's a massive change for, for, um, but institutions are for some institutions and also different parts of institutions. And so, um, we need to just think of it and how it can help us, how is this going to help us and how as a sector, can we also inform and evaluate these things and learn from these things and be part of that research as well?
Speaker 2 [00:18:29] What we're losing in a podcast is Kaya and Chris both nodding enthusiastically as you're speaking through this. But for everyone listening to this afterwards, we fully agree and we’re nodding away.
Speaker 1 [00:18:37] Why thank you. Well, yes. And and Kaya, um, you'd mentioned, do you know about your background in education as well? And I think, um, what I've heard, um, actually from colleagues, um, across the sector is talking about how we've got students coming in from school and where students are beginning to use more of these digital tools and think about AI. And so and then they're going to come to us as a university, and then they're going to go into the workplace that employers are going to expect them to be comfortable and familiar with these. And so we can't be the blocker in the, in the middle of that. Um, so I thought was really interesting. I just wondered just finally for some final thoughts about how this sort of, um, primary and secondary education sector in the schools are changing as well.
Speaker 3 [00:19:39] Yeah. I think, um, a lot of the challenges are universal. So, as you say, the lack of education slash investment in CPD to upskill the teachers in digital sometimes gets overlooked. And it's probably quite, um, yeah, a pivotal foundation like Chris and I mentioned before, you can't upskill the students and to upskill the staff. The two need to go hand in hand. It's not a case of one than the other. Um, so a lot of that I think is a universal resource. And I say the infrastructure, um, my background was more secondary. And they have, you know, quite a robust Wi-Fi infrastructure now. And lots of the academies have a lot of investment in terms of resource, in terms of I.T. support as well, which I don't think would sort of trickle down to the primary school level.
Um, I'm just trying to think of what other, I guess big milestones, etc. may also impact progress aside from CPD and investment. Um, I think it depends on the exam boards. And also like you say, that external I guess ecosystem that's around schools, how that feeds into them and vice versa. You could really upskill the students and then find that they don't go into industries that lend themselves to digital, or you might have an area where the school is that is or isn't digital. So again, it has to reflect the environment that the school will come from and the catchment area around it.
Um, the other thing I would like to add is about AI and ethics, which I think also has quite a big level of hesitancy and resistance, which I think is completely valid really, because ultimately AI does pull from the internet and there's only, you know, so many publishers and so many companies that dictate where that information, a) exists, but also how it's presented and from which viewpoint. So I do hope that AI becomes more, um, democratic over time and people are allowed to help with the steering committees really shape how that AI principles reflects everybody who uses it and not just the people who write that content online. And, you know, a few years ago, or the certain amount of science that, yeah, I think these iterations of becoming closer to the now time, the present time, which means that it should begin to reflect more and more people who add their contributions to the internet. But I am wary and concerned that the majority of the internet comes from a viewpoint, and therefore you're dismissing and or excluding others from the table. So I hope the AI kind of helps to level that, I guess. Yeah. Conjunction, no disassociation and to try and yeah, have more of a consensus of all the people that are in education and all the types of students and staff that support it, not just those people who make articles online to supersede them.
Speaker 1 [00:22:19] Yeah, really good points. And I think your point there are around about schools and it's really important that we think about that and work and partner with schools so that we've got that as much as a seamless transition as possible, but also recognising that whilst um… A lot of, uh, young kids know, uh, you know, able to use digital devices and are using digital platforms, it doesn't always translate into how to use digital in education and in their studies and in the workplace. And so not take that for granted. And as you said about that, um, upskilling them in that space, and also the fact that we've also got to think about parity and access and healthcare, this potentially that, that digital divide to be mindful of that, because we've already got some sort of lack of clarity around, around education and and being mindful that we don't add to that with the digital, but um, take that into account. So. Well, thank you so much. This has been a really interesting conversation. I love to talk about anything technology and it's been brilliant chatting to both. Um, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 [00:23:55] Thanks for your time.
Speaker 2 [00:23:37] Thank you again.