The NIAIS’ custom AI is helping students and faculty learn to use artificial intelligence

By Omid Manavirad

Last year, Sac State President Luke Wood launched the National Institute on Artificial Intelligence in Society to spearhead the integration of AI into campus life.

The institute is working to implement AI tools in a way that will benefit not just students, but professors and faculty as well.

The NIAIS is developing AI-enabled tools to support student, faculty and staff success at Sac State. The list of current and completed AI-specific projects is available on the NIAIS webpage, including an AI Academic Advisor Tool, a revitalization of the My Sac State app, an AI-Powered Admission Assistant to various Business Major programs and the development of an AI-powered tool for optimizing student elective choices.

“We are working on a number of custom bots that will be for student and faculty advising in engineering, mechanical engineering, and the college of business,” Sac State’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Alexander Sidorkin said. “We’re also looking at more sophisticated solutions where AI would be analyzing our institutional data, large sets of data, like student performance.”

Associate Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Business Analytics Sadaf Ashtari, just recently completed an AI-Policy Navigator for the university.

Ashtari said she thinks the university is behind in the fast-paced world of AI and that the focus could be shifted to preparing students for when they want to find jobs.

“So first of all, I just wanted to make it clear that we don’t have anything AI-related in our curriculum. But we probably should,” Ashtari said. “I definitely think we can use AI to our advantage in the university setting.”

Ashtari said she believes the university is trying to help faculty first get situated with AI, and from there students will be able to interact with AI in a learning environment that has been established ethically.

The implementation of AI tools is already in progress; all Sac State students have access to Microsoft’s AI, Copilot, by signing in with their Sac State email.

However, Sidorkin said the rollout of other AI tools will happen gradually over the next ten years as more specialized tools are developed by the NIAIS.

“There’s a lot of things that can be done with AI right now,” Sidorkin said. “But educating people on how to use it is also being considered.”

On Oct. 7, Sac State’s National Institute on Artificial Intelligence in Society held an open seminar on AI and how it can be used in higher education. Sidorkin sat with Sac State professors and faculty to discuss AI in education in a seminar titled “Is Leapfrogging Effect Real? Cognitive Dimensions of AI-positive Pedagogy.”

“It’s not only the issue of cheating, but also those kinds of skills are replaced at the workplace as well,” Sidorkin said. “AI disrupted the normal sequence of skills from basic, to mid-range, to higher level skills. But it mostly affects the mid-level, like the ability to write an essay, because you can now do it with AI.”

Sidorkin said the big question is whether it is possible to reach higher level thinking skills without first doing the work.

During the meeting, the NIAIS considered various methods for testing this “leapfrogging effect” in college curriculums, but also how AI will be involved in students’ lives.

Sidorkin said the NIAIS currently offers “College and Career with AI,” a two-unit semester course that teaches how to use AI for research, learning, and problem-solving.

Herman Melnyk, senior computer engineering major and President of the Information Technology Club at Sac State, said he thinks the integration of AI tools is a positive addition to campus life.

“Personally, I think it’s great,” Melnyk said. “It helps people do what they need to do more efficiently and makes learning much easier.”

Senior computer science major Illya Gordyy said AI is a helpful tool for academic success when it is used in the right way and that he would consider taking the course offered by the NIAIS.

“Honestly, I believe that AI will influence every single industry,” Gordyy said. “Every field of work will have some kind of AI automation, and taking this course will probably give you some chances to stay afloat later in life.”

This story was originally published in The State Hornet.