ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DIGITALIZATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION: ENHANCING DOCTORAL RESEARCH PRODUCTIVITY IN INDIAN UNIVERSITIES

The growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the modern education system is transforming traditional academic work, particularly for research scholars. The doctoral students have been utilizing AI tools in their academic writing with some potential challenges within Indian Universities. This study aims to understand and explore the impact of Artificial Intelligence on their research productivity among Indian Universities. This involves a quantitative approach, with the dataset of 106 doctoral students across various disciplines to explore their experiences, perceptions and challenges faced by the doctoral students regarding AI Tools in their research productivity, improving writing skills, doing literature reviews, analyzing datasets, interpretations of research results, generating references, citation and improving visual representations in facilitating a more efficient and seamless research workflow. Research findings reveal that there are many benefits that are derived from AI adoption in their doctoral program, identification of specific AI tools that are most suitable for them, as most of them have answered ChatGPT, Google Bard, Research Rabbit, Quillbot. The students demonstrate a strong awareness of these tools and actively use them for drafting outlines, organizing literature, managing references, and generating citations. However, the study also outlines the potential negative impacts of AI tools that bring ethical concerns, data privacy issues, trust issues, and errors in search results. The study concludes with recommendations for the effective integration of AI tools in doctoral programs, aimed at enhancing research productivity and ensuring ethical utilization. Training programs, workshops, FDPs related to effective use of AI should be planned and provided to guide the doctoral researchers effectively.