Appointment AI Governance Officer Education at UU
From 1 August 2024, Yvette Roman has been appointed AI Governance Officer Education at the Student & Academic Affairs Office (SO&O). Previously, she was AI policy officer at faculty REBO. There, she created a Code of Conduct on Artificial Intelligence (SolisID login required) for faculty REBO. In her new role, there is an opportunity to draft it for all UU staff and students. ‘Our university embraces innovations in AI, but we have to take into account our public and academic values and aspects such as laws and regulations. That means making compromises,’ she says.
Yvette focuses on setting up AI Governance, a holistic framework for AI aspects within education. ‘I start by taking stock and initiating a roadmap, an overview of what is needed to implement AI ethically in education. By ethical, I mean thinking about what we do and don’t do in terms of using generative artificial intelligence in education and other forms of AI. So a deliberate use of it, with particular attention to ethics and other impacts such as example for environment.’ Yvette is determined to get the importance of governance on AI into the capillaries of our organisation, with the aim of encouraging positive developments and avoiding risks (e.g. around fraud in testing). Everyone needs to know what is meant by ‘Responsible AI’, for example. This should become the widely accepted norm.
Cooperation and legislation
Yvette will work closely with various stakeholders within the university, including the vice-deans of Education, education directors and the Executive Board. They will receive advice from her to achieve a uniform policy and set-up of AI Governance that, among other things, meets the strict requirements of European legislation, which have been in place since this summer.
There is also cooperation with Tilburg University on this subject, where Yvette is carrying out a similar assignment. This offers an opportunity to exchange best practices, for instance, and can speed up the process at both institutions.
Challenges and outlook
Yvette sees the implementation of a harmonised, broad-based AI policy as one of the biggest challenges for Utrecht University. ‘In a rapidly evolving technological landscape, policies can quickly become obsolete, so thinking ahead and anticipating are essential. Personally, I don’t skip a day without checking all my sources of information. That’s really necessary to keep abreast of all the new technologies.’