Enhancing Practice, Preserving Control: Gen AI Agents in Higher Education (Poster)

At the University of Bath,we are trialling the creation of Gen AI Agents to support learning and teaching.Workingin partnership with EDT Partners,andpowered byAWS,we are creatingAgentsusinganopen-sourceAIframeworkcalled Lecture.This has beendeployedonour own AWSBedrockenvironment, and trainedusing in-house data,tomaintaincontrolover boththe information used to train the AIandthe outputitgenerates.This willlet usexplore the efficacy of internally produced AI tools, in part to address concernsabout data security and control of institutional intellectual property. The poster willshowcasethe two Agents and highlight the challenges and potentialfor enhanced practice.This is an evolving project and plans for future development will become clearer as we progress. Agent 1 is an undergraduatestudent-facing tool providingexam preparation fora degreemodulein the School of Management.Itadoptsthree approaches to help students prepare foranend of module exam:(1)‘think it through’ (Socratic questioning); (2)‘test yourself’ (retrieval practice);and(3),‘teach me back’ (Feynman technique). Agent 2 is a staff-facing tool that reviewsstaff-generatedfeedbackonundergraduatecoursework, in Department for Health, for consistency with university assessment principles,and alignment with related marking criteria. In both casesan important consideration has beento avoid AI doing the work that we expect humans to do.TheAI does not assess student work orgenerateassessment feedback.Instead,itsupportshumans to do those things well.Otherimportant aimshave beento ensure AI output isaccurate(andprevents misleading students and staff),and that theuniversitymaintainsfull data security. The poster will also note significant areas that could be useful to other institutions:collaboration activities to confirm shared understanding before training AI; administrative activities and policy updates to allow staff and student data to train our tools;andbuilding guardrails to ensure safe practice.