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Campus Demands for AI

Cloud Forum 2024

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Introductions

Timothy A. Werth

Vice President of Administrative Services and CIO

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Justin Ward

Senior Manager, Cloud Operations

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Who Is Purdue University Global?

Purdue’s University for “Working Class Adults”

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Reacting to the GenAI Wave

Establishing Governance

Institutional Policies & Communication

  • Academic Integrity
  • Resources for Faculty & Students

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AI Exploration

  • What should we do?

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Expanding Governance

Successful Collaboration Across the University

AI Task Force - Exploration

  • Engaged directly in projects
  • Problem identification
  • Solutioning

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AI Advisory Board

  • Project Steering
  • Portal to entire University

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Feedback Loop

  • Task Force / Advisory Board

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What we know about Adult Learners

Driving Purdue Global into GenAI

  • Self-Directed Learners (Malcolm Knowles)
    • Direct and Immediate Access to Resources and Support

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  • Challenges in our Classroom:
    • Low Self - Efficacy
    • Learning Motivation Sustainability
    • Sense of Belonging

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Our Entry Into GenAI

Introducing the Purdue Global Learning Assistant

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The Purdue Global Learning Assistant

LMS-Contextualized Guidance & Feedback

As Jody begins their Journey by signing into the Brightspace LMS portal , they enter a course they’re enrolled in

They can now access the PGLA by selecting the widget icon in the lower right corner of their course in Brightspace.

Once Jody opens the PGLA , The Home screen of the Widget appears and Jody can now start interacting with the PGLA for getting all their questions addressed.

Help/More Info Button

In case Jody requires help in understanding the PGLA’s functionalities, Clicking on this button will redirect Jody to the PGLA overview & help section.

Open Standalone Application

Jody can visit the PGLA Standalone application by clicking on this button. The Standalone App will be opened in a new window.

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Conversation History Button

This button will take Jody to the conversation history where all their previous conversations can be found.

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The Purdue Global Learning Assistant

LMS-Contextualized Guidance & Feedback

1. Jody requires help with Discussion Board Analysis. They select the appropriate focus section

3. Jody needs help with getting started and understanding the requirements

2. Once Jody selects the exact unit for DB, PGLA then asks for what exactly they need help with

4. As Jody then asks the PGLA to help them review this Draft

5. Jody asks for Feedback on specific blocks of the draft from PGLA

6. After getting feedback on the draft, If Jody wants to contact a tutor, PGLA provides the steps

Once Jody selects the Course Unit, the PGLA asks about what specific guidance they want

Jody then asks for help with getting started on a discussion board draft

User Journey - Writing Assistant

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The Purdue Global Learning Assistant

Cloud Architecture

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Our Goal

  1. Provide all of our students with 1-on-1 mentorship and tutoring in a scalable manner
  2. Increase average persistence in the first year of enrollment
  3. Increase the average student’s performance

Tackling the 2 Sigma Problem

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How We Did It

AI-first Processes

Cloud Foundations

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Leverage the flexibility and efficiency-gains inherent to GCP to decrease dev time and operational overhead.

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AI Focused Governance

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Our AI Task Force was created specifically to provide an organized approach to selecting, evaluating, and implementing AI technologies.

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Stakeholder Collaboration

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Faculty and staff stakeholders have been critical in pushing the need for an AI assistant in the classroom. They are our designers, testers, critics and have been a part of the process since the beginning

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Where We’re Going

The Road to 30k Students

Pilot Implementation

Deliberately selected courses split into A/B cohorts enrolled in a pilot implementation

1k

  • 6 months Evaluation
  • Engagement Metrics
  • Survey Data

Phased Rollout

Rollout to 15 courses with continued evaluation

12k

  • 12 months Evaluation
  • Enrollment Metrics, Focus on Drop Rate

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Scaled Operations

University-wide implementation with full course catalogue

36k

  • Continuous Capture of Usage Metrics, Student Performance, and Drop Rate

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What We’ve Learned

  1. Think Like a Product Team
  2. Be Quick, Flexible, and Cross-Functional
  3. Get Faculty Involved EARLY
  4. Be Willing to Take Managed Risk

Our Takeaways

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THANK YOU

justin.ward@purdueglobal.edu

timothy.werth@purdueglobal.edu

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