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Generative AI for Academics

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, fascination and fear have permeated the university system in response to the remarkable capability of this chatbot to produce sophisticated text in response to natural language prompts. There has been a widespread belief that this development represents an existential threat to long established academic practice. While alarm has been provoked by issues of assessment integrity, the challenge posed by Generative AI (GAI) to higher education extends far beyond this domain into all facets of scholarship and administration.

This timely book provides an accessible, constructive guide for academics navigating the rapidly changing landscape of generative AI tools which are reshaping knowledge production. Mapping pathways towards realising the vast opportunities these technologies offer, it outlines practical strategies across four core areas of academic work:

Thinking: The book explores careful integration of GAI services to augment individual and collaborative scholarly thinking. With concrete guidance, it demonstrates how to utilise conversational agents as interlocutors that productively assist in developing novel ideas and advancing impactful projects.

Collaborating: Given its potential to provide a supportive infrastructure for collective work, strategies are presented for leveraging GAI as a research assistant coordinating teams. While acknowledging current limitations, the book charts an ambitious course towards these AI systems becoming trusted partners that can enhance scholarly cooperation.

Communicating: Cautioning against over-reliance negatively impacting academic culture, ethical applications of GAI for relieving unmanageable communication burdens are proposed. Guidance focuses on upholding standards of quality and etiquette while tapping AI efficiencies to sustain professional standards.

Engaging: With the growing volatility and polarisation of social media posing public outreach challenges amidst GAI’s own rise, thoughtful and practical frameworks are offered for using these developments to support online engagement without sacrificing scholarly standards. 

Running through the book is a commitment to nurturing responsible development, supported by awareness of the underlying economic drivers of GAI hype and careful consideration of the consequences of how these tools and services are taken up within the sector. The book supports scholars in building reflexive, imaginative practices that steer integration of GAI tools on campus towards empowering rather than diminishing educational values. It develops an argument about what it means to use GAI in a genuinely scholarly way and provides practical support for academics in putting this into practice in immediate and impactful ways. 

While exploring the genuine risks posed by uncritical adoption, the book spotlights vast opportunities for using GAI capabilities to further teaching, research and engagement goals if paired with ethical reflection and a reflexive approach. With expansive yet realistic guidance, it supports continual learning around GAI through individual and collective efforts. The book positions itself as an essential primer for this new phase of technological development within universities, helping academics adopt emerging technologies as partners in advancing knowledge production rather than as threats to traditions and values which we wish to maintain.