The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) within higher education has been rapid, with many institutions and academics taken aback by the increase in usage, declaring assessment types to be ‘dead’ or ‘redundant’ because of AI. This has resulted in widespread panic across the sector about how degree programmes can adapt to prevent the use of AI and ensure assessment integrity, with many students now routinely using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini or Microsoft’s Co-Pilot as a part of their studies.
'There is...an argument that the use of AI should be embraced, and that students should be safely encouraged to work with AI and taught how to use it ethically as a part of academic practice.'
However, we should learn from history. A similar argument was made decades ago, upon the advent of the digital calculator and the computer, both of which have now become integral mainstays of professional and academic practice. There is, therefore, an argument that the use of AI should be embraced, and that students should be safely encouraged to work with AI and taught how to use it ethically as a part of academic practice.
Within the Biomedicine Department at the University of Salford, we are exploring several approaches to the use of AI in order to enhance student experience, and to allow students to engage with AI in a positive way that may enhance their knowledge, in line with the comments of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP).1 Here, I summarise three ways in which we have employed AI with the aim of highlighting its potential benefits within higher education.
AI CHATBOTS TO ENHANCE CLINICAL COMMUNICATION
Many students of undergraduate subjects aligned to biomedicine are interested in leveraging their degrees to transition to graduate-entry medicine. However, as disciplines such as biomedical science are traditionally not patient-facing, there is minimal scope to teach clinical communication within the curricula. Students seeking this path therefore have to develop these skills via extracurricular activity, which may limit access for students who have work or caring commitments.
Consequently, Nicola Morgan, Samantha Borland and I have developed a series of AI chatbots that are integrated into our virtual learning environment, which can be prompted to mirror real-world scenarios. These allow students to reflect on their communicative practice and provide an introduction to clinical communication. We are embedding this into our first-year laboratory skills module for the upcoming year, to allow all students to enhance their communication skills, and show that the way in which something is communicated can impact patient well-being and understanding.
CREATION OF 360° IMMERSIVE SPACES FOR DIGITAL ESCAPE ROOMS
As a part of our strategy to increase active and gamified learning within the department, Nicola Morgan and I established UoScape (www.uoscape.co.uk) for the delivery of digital escape rooms. These have been shown to enhance students’ acquisition of knowledge, and overall experience.2
Initially, we imaged real-world spaces using traditional 360° cameras. However, to increase variety and the number of scenarios that we could deliver via the platform, we had to resort to image generation. Given that art is not our best subject, we decided to utilise AI to generate a series of 360° spaces using Thinglink Skybox AI (as shown in the Figure).
An example 360° image generated through Thinglink Skybox AI for use within the UoScape digital escape room platform.
This approach allowed us to rapidly design novel scenarios, to allow for expansion to other disciplines outside the laboratory sciences, where we lacked ready access to real-world spaces for imaging. It has enabled us to mirror environments related to students’ potential areas of employability. We have therefore been able to significantly decrease the amount of time required to design and image custom-built escape rooms from multiple days to just a matter of minutes. With full virtual reality integration, we are now exploring the use of this tool for a variety of other educational scenarios, due to its ease of use and rapid development time.
INTERACTIVE AI-GENERATED FLASHCARDS
Throughout my brief time as an academic, I have observed flashcards to be a key method used by students to revise. However, in most cases, students spend an exorbitant number of hours making flashcards, during which time they are not actively revising, but rather rewriting information.
One of our exceptional undergraduate students, Daniya Abedalreza, raised the question of whether we could save students time by using AI to generate flashcards, thereby freeing up time for revision. Using Canva AI, an AI-enabled visual design tool, she showed that by inputting lecture notes, she could create a series of interactive student flashcards within less than 5 minutes. Additionally, she discovered that the code used to generate these cards can be integrated into virtual learning environments, thereby allowing access for all students to a series of flashcards which could be curated by academic staff to ensure they align with upcoming assessments. Daniya will now share her learning with academics from across the institution, as well as establishing student-facing workshops to teach students how to create the flashcards themselves.
CONCLUSION
Through this article, I hope I have shown that AI has potential substantial benefits for higher education. My aim has been to open your eyes to novel approaches, which can be directly integrated into higher education to enhance student experience and acquisition of knowledge.
MATTHEW JONES
Lecturer in Physiology, Biomedical Research and Innovation Centre, University of Salford
REFERENCES
1. CEDEFOP 2023 Skills in Transition: the Way to 2035 Luxembourg: Publications Office http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/438491.
2. Morgan N & Jones M 2025 Pedagogy: The LTEC Learning and Teaching Showcase https://doi.org/10.57898/pedagogy.279.
