Computer Sciences Commons^™

Student Partners In Ai Literacy: A Library And Writing Center Collaboration, A. P. Anderson

Velma K. Waters Library Faculty Publications

Student voices are valuable but often overlooked in discussions surrounding the role of AI in higher education. AI Literacy education efforts that treat students only as a potential audience for instruction rather than as potential instructors themselves miss out on the passion, curiosity, and complex questions that students can bring to these conversations. If we center student voices in AI Literacy education discussions, and encourage both their enthusiasm and skepticism, students can become comfortable and confident in leading discussions about AI in the classroom and in their lives. In my proposed poster presentation, I will share insights from an AI …

Data Visualization, Licensing, And Other Generative Ai Initiatives At Minnesota State University Mankato, Evan Rusch, Nat Gustafson-Sundell

Library Services Publications

At Minnesota State University Mankato (MNSU), we’ve undertaken several experiments and initiatives focused on Generative Artificial Intelligence. At the start of the fall semester, we collaborated with university Information Technology Services to present a professional development session for returning faculty through the MNSU Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning on “5 Tips for Teaching with AI.” We also presented to librarians across the regional consortium, Minitex, on “The Library & Generative AI.” This presentation included several demonstrations. It was offered as an introduction to Generative AI focused on topics most relevant to librarians, including information literacy, as well as …

Latent Auto-Recursive Composition Engine: A Generative System For Creative Expression In Human-Ai Collaboration, Yenkai Huang

Computer Science Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the shifting boundaries of art in the era of Generative AI, crit-
ically examining the essence of art and the legitimacy of AI-generated works. Despite
significant advancements in the quality and accessibility of art through generative
AI, such creations frequently encounter skepticism regarding their status as authentic
art. To address this skepticism, the study explores the role of creative agency in var-
ious generative AI workflows and introduces an ”artist-in-the-loop” system tailored
for image generation models like Stable Diffusion. This system aims to deepen the
artist’s engagement and understanding of the creative process. Additionally, a novel
tool, …

Companionship, Romance, And Self-Perception With Conversational Chatbots, Jonathan Windsor

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Serving as a metaphorical gateway transcending the communicative barriers of physical relationships in interpersonal dialogues, artificial imators of human behavior and speech, also known as conversational chatbots; a simulation of human knowledge and existence in a bi-directional conversation, functions as a rhetor of expression. Spanning from contexts of professional to romantic, I serve to dissect and critically analyze the nuances of human-machine relationships based on pre-established literature, inviting ethical considerations and biases in their design and marketing. Corporate influences spark pre-established servitude-esque relationships with conversational agents. Professional applications, both task-oriented and emotionally based alike, paint a mixed picture of …

Sustainable Accounting: The Benefits And Challenges Of Its Implementation, Collin Eckstein

University Honors College

This thesis is centered around the idea that sustainability is a necessary component within the world. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors are key components of analyzing sustainable practices. Although accountants have historically focused on financial reporting, they now have the added function of sustainable accounting as environmental implications are an area of concern for companies. A substantial component of this thesis centers around analyzing how ESG factors contribute to an organization’s financial performance. It also observes how comprehensive sustainability reports impact investor decisions and examines the challenges that auditors face when providing assurance for sustainability initiatives. Furthermore, it examines …

Super Mario Evolution By The Augmentation Of Topology, Russell A. Autin

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes the creation and development of an implementation of the NeuroEvolution of Augmenting Topologies (NEAT) architecture to train an agent to play Super Mario Brothers. Building off of a basic implementation of NEAT, this thesis project shows the process of refining the fitness calculation that ranks the networks in the population and also defines the creation and application of a dataset to train the agent. The use of a dataset to train an agent is a novel idea in the world of reinforcement learning because, generally, reinforcement learning trains an agent to complete a singular task like the …

Evaluating Introductory Computer Science Labs In The Presence Of Ai Tools, Nicholas Snow, Devin Chaimberlain, Abigail Pitcairn, Benjamin Sweeney

Thinking Matters Symposium

This study explores the resistance of introductory computer science lab assignments to “shortcutting” by generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT. By analyzing the work of three distinct student personas on these assignments, we identified key characteristics of language and structure that influence an assignment's vulnerability to AI abuse. Based on these insights, we propose strategies for educators to adapt labs to both counteract AI shortcutting and encourage productive uses of AI.

Using Ai Chatbots As Ideation Machines, Brett Hawley, Naomi Hollans

Student Works

The team analyzed 3 popular chatbots and found that none of them could consistently produce idea-centered essay help responses. The team approached them with 3 separate prompts, one from each of three academic subjects. The team analyzed how each chatbot adapted to the addition of personal information from the “student” and to the phrase, “what are some ideas that could help me get started?” The goal with each interaction was to receive a response in which the chatbot did not produce any pre-written content. Overall, the team’s research did not suggest that AI is fully reliable as an ideation tool.

Artificial Intelligence Could Probably Write This Essay Better Than Me, Claire Martino

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

No abstract provided.

Redefining Readiness: Higher Education's Role In An Ai World How Higher Education Can Bridge The Gap Between Human Talent And Machine Intelligence For The Workforce Of Tomorrow, Paloma Shelton

Honors 499 Theses and Creative Projects

As the world changes all around us in the landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI), our educational pathways need to adapt quickly. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the current and future state of higher education, its relationship with AI and technology, and the evolving requirements of the workforce. It outlines the historical progression of higher education since the Colonial Era, emphasizing the need for constant adaptation to societal and economic demands. It reflects how higher education must evolve to equip students with the necessary skills and adaptability for future careers in the digital and AI-augmented landscape. As AI advances …

Revolutionizing Access To Justice: The Role Of Ai-Powered Chatbots And Retrieval-Augmented Generation In Legal Self-Help, Ayyoub Ajmi

Faculty Works

Advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present numerous opportunities to routinize and make the law more accessible to self-represented litigants, notably through AI chatbots employing natural language processing for conversational interactions. These chatbots exhibit legal reasoning abilities without explicit training on legal-specific datasets. However, they face challenges processing less common and more specific knowledge from their training data. Additionally, once trained, their static status makes them susceptible to knowledge obsolescence over time. This article explores the application of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to enhance chatbot accuracy, drawing insights from a real-world implementation developed for a court system to support self-help litigants.

Global Challenges In Accessing Mental Health Services And Addressing The Impact Of Alzheimer’S Disease And Depression, Padmapriya Velupillai Meikandan

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This research project focuses on developing a quantum sensing system that can detect biomarkers associated with health disorders, like Alzheimer’s and depression. Our goal is to create a sensitive and highly selective quantum sensing device using a diamond nitrogen vacancy (NV) center. To train and test our quantum machine learning algorithms we will preprocess data from the available Human Connectome Project dataset. This dataset forms the basis of our quantum-based methods. The core of our project revolves around developing quantum machine learning algorithms that utilize techniques such as Support Vector Machines and neural networks to diagnose health disorders using data …

Learning About Ai: Level Up Your Skills Without Overwhelming Your Mind, Jennifer Freer, Lara Nicosia

Presentations and other scholarship

OpenAI and deep learning and neural networks, oh my!  The swiftly developing landscape of artificial intelligence, combined with its rapid integration into our work and personal lives, can feel confusing and overwhelming.  This session will help you think about AI in your own work and plan your own personal AI learning journey, while also providing thoughtful recommendations on how both you and your users can get started.  The presenters will discuss common terminology, user-friendly resources for understanding AI, questions to ask when exploring AI tools, and ideas on how to start building your own knowledge on this topic.  The information …

Usage And Knowledge Of Online Tools And Generative Ai: A Survey Of Students, Rahul R. Divekar Phd, Lisette Gonzalez, Sophia Guerra, Natasha Boos

Department of Experience Design (XD) Faculty Publications

Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT are poised to transform student and educator workflows in higher education. However, there is less documentation on the range of tools students in higher education use, how they use them and in coordination with other online tools for learning, and their expertise using AI tools. We present a mixed-method analysis of a survey conducted at a doctoral-granting university in the United States investigating the adoption of AI tools in the context of other technologies. The findings include how the students used GenAI tools in light of other on-line technologies, their perception of expertise on …

Ai-Analyst: An Ai-Assisted Sdlc Analysis Framework For Business Cost Optimization, Nuruzzaman Faruqui, Priyabrata Thatoi, Rohit Choudhary, Ivana Roncevic, Hamed Alqahtani, Iqbal H. Sarker, Shapla Khanam

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Managing the System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is a complex task because of its involvement in coordinating diverse activities, stakeholders, and resources while ensuring project goals are met efficiently. The complex nature of the SDLC process leaves plenty of scope for human error, which impacts the overall business cost. This paper introduces AI-Analyst, an AI-assisted framework developed using the transformer-based model with more than 150 million parameters to assist with SDLC management. It minimizes manual effort errors, optimizes resource allocation, and improves decision-making processes, resulting in substantial cost savings. The statistical analysis shows that it saves around 53.33% of costs in …

The Ownership Of Potato Boy: A Discussion On Ai And Copyright, James Thibeault

Library Publications

Surprisingly, the copyright status of generative AI works is pretty straight forward in the US: no one owns the copyright. According to the United States Copyright Office (2023), “copyright can protect only material that is the product of human creativity. Most fundamentally, the term ‘author,’ which is used in both the Constitution and the Copyright Act, excludes non-humans.” This concept is not new as previous court cases had already established this ruling. In the 1884 court case Burrow-Giles Lithographic Company v. Sarony, the defendant made copies of a photograph and claimed the author held no copyright since a machine, a …

Exploring Hedonic And Utilitarian Aspects Through Perceived Warmth In Human-Designed Vs. Ai-Generated Fashion, Dooyoung Choi, Ha Kyung Lee

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Among various ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) is used in the fashion industry, its utilization in design has sparked public discussion about the potential replacement of human designers by AI. Along with this critical question, it is imminent to examine how consumers would respond to designs by AI. The purpose of this study is to explore consumers’ perceptions toward a fashion product labeled as generated by an AI system, comparing it to the same product labeled as designed by a human designer. Specifically, drawing from existing literature, we examine if the design source affects consumers’ perceptions of a product …

Finding Hierarchies To Improve Learning In Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning, Roy Mobley

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is an approach to allowing computer agents to try and learn how to solve problems by learning what actions are best to take in a given situation. RL is effective for learning what to do in an environment, but as the problem grows larger, the amount of information needed grows exponentially, making RL less effective on complex problems. A big challenge, often called the curse of dimensionality, is that the number of states and possible number of actions in an environment can grow too large to sufficiently test every possible combination of state and action. One method …

Neurosymbolic Ai Approach To Attribution In Large Language Models, Deepa Tilwani, Revathy Venkataramanan, Amit P. Sheth

Faculty Publications

Attribution in large language models (LLMs) remains a significant challenge, particularly in ensuring the factual accuracy and reliability of the generated outputs. Current methods for citation or attribution, such as those employed by tools like Perplexity.ai and Bing Search-integrated LLMs, attempt to ground responses by providing real-time search results and citations. However, so far, these approaches suffer from issues such as hallucinations, biases, surface-level relevance matching, and the complexity of managing vast, unfiltered knowledge sources. While tools like Perplexity.ai dynamically integrate web-based information and citations, they often rely on inconsistent sources such as blog posts or unreliable sources, which limits …

Agentes Artificiales En Las Juntas Corporativas, Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci, David Cordero-Heredia, Carlos A. Carillo-Jaramillo

Faculty Works

Miles de afios atras, empresarios romanos gestionaban negocios conjuntos a traves de esclavos altamente inteligentes de propiedad comun. Los esclavos romanos no tenfan plena capacidad legal y eran considerados propiedad de sus duefios comunes. Ahora, las corporaciones buscan delegar la toma de decisiones a maquinas superinteligentes mediante el uso de inteligencia artificial en las juntas corporativas. La inteligencia artificial podrfa asistir, integrar e incluso reemplazar a los directores humanos. Sin embargo, el concepto de usar inteligencia artificial en las juntas directivas esta, en gran medida, inexplorado y plantea varios problemas. Este artfculo arroja luz sobre los desaffos legales y de …

Machine Learning As A Tool For Early Detection: A Focus On Late-Stage Colorectal Cancer Across Socioeconomic Spectrums, Hadiza Galadima, Rexford Anson-Dwamena, Ashley Johnson, Ghalib Bello, Georges Adunlin, James Blando

Community & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

Purpose: To assess the efficacy of various machine learning (ML) algorithms in predicting late-stage colorectal cancer (CRC) diagnoses against the backdrop of socio-economic and regional healthcare disparities. Methods: An innovative theoretical framework was developed to integrate individual- and census tract-level social determinants of health (SDOH) with sociodemographic factors. A comparative analysis of the ML models was conducted using key performance metrics such as AUC-ROC to evaluate their predictive accuracy. Spatio-temporal analysis was used to identify disparities in late-stage CRC diagnosis probabilities. Results: Gradient boosting emerged as the superior model, with the top predictors for late-stage CRC diagnosis being anatomic site, …

Enhancing Decision-Making In Higher Education: Exploring The Integration Of Chatgpt And Data Visualization Tools In Data Analysis, Tristan Jiang, Elina Liu, Tasawar Baig, Qingrong Li

University Administration Publications

This chapter explores the potential of integrating conversational AI tools such as ChatGPT with data visualization (DV) tools such as Power BI in higher education settings. A brief history of chatbots is summarized and challenges and opportunities in higher education are outlined. The highlights include AI's prospects for enhancing data-informed decision-making while needing safeguards to mitigate risks. Through a pioneering exercise, we integrated ChatGPT's conversational capabilities with Power BI's interface via API and tested functionality. Suggestions for good practice and implications for higher education are discussed.

The Educational Affordances And Challenges Of Chatgpt: State Of The Field, Helen Crompton, Diane Burke

STEMPS Faculty Publications

ChatGPT was released to the public in November 30, 2022. This study examines how ChatGPT can be used by educators and students to promote learning and what are the challenges and limitations. This study is unique in providing one of the first systematic reviews using peer review studies to provide an early examination of the field. Using PRISMA principles, 44 articles were selected for review. Grounded coding was then used to reveal trends in the data. The findings show that educators can use ChatGPT for teaching support, task automation, and professional development. These were further delineated further by axial sub …

Enhancing Community College Leadership Development Through Ai: Enriching The Andragogical Approach, James Bartlett, Michelle Bartlett

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

This proposal is for a work-in-progress that proposes a study to explore the innovative use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically ChatGPT, in advancing the development of training for leadership skills within community college settings. It aims to investigate how AI can be leveraged to provide a personalized and effective learning experience, aligning with the principles of andragogy to cater to adult learners in leadership roles. The study, currently in the data collection phase, anticipates revealing significant insights into the effectiveness of AI in professional development. It seeks to highlight the innovative aspects of AI integration in educational leadership, focusing on …

Bias-Aware Gaze Uniformity Assessment In Group Images, Omkar Kulkarni

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Today, more than 5 billion photos are captured every day, with smartphones generating over 94\% of these images. However, despite advancements in technology, achieving aesthetically pleasing group photos remains challenging, especially when it comes to aligning the direction of everyone’s gaze. While current methods focus on facial features, they often fail to ensure consistent gaze direction. The introduction of the iPhone's Live mode, which captures a 1.5-second video snippet along with still images, complicates the selection of the best key photo due to its subjective nature and a lack of publicly available data, especially during the pandemic.

To address these …

Exploratory Prompting Of Large Language Models To Act As Co-Pilots For Augmenting Business Process Work In Document Classification, Jose Ramon Ilagan, Joseph Benjamin R. Ilagan, Claire Louisse Basallo, Zachary Matthew Alabastro

Quantitative Methods and Information Technology Faculty Publications

Businesses deal with different types of documents containing unstructured documents. The data in these documents must be converted into digital forms other automated systems could only process. One generic use case is document classification, which usually involves manual transformation due to human understanding needed in the process. These documents go beyond those generated through regular business transactions and operations and also include web-based content such as online news, blogs, e-mails, and various digital libraries. Recent developments in robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) aim to automate the otherwise expensive, time-consuming, and repetitive manual steps. Through more powerful natural …

33. Chatgpt Assistance In Creating Chemistry Practice Problems: Pitfalls, Positives, And Possibilities, Michael A. Christiansen

Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions

ChatGPT, a relatively new Large Language Model (LLM) artificial intelligence (Al) chatbot, has gained significant attention as the most downloaded software app, accruing over 100 million users within two months of its release. This software can generate quick, articulate responses to virtually any textual query. Many educators are concerned about its potential for enabling student cheating. However, it currently suffers significant limitations in solving chemistry problems-documented through peer-reviewed articles and from the author's experience suggesting that chemistry students will perform far better, on average, by studying than by relying on ChatGPT. This is particularly true of math-centric problems, which the …

22. Examining Ways Of Using Ai To Better Support Teaching Faculty, Mitigate Burnout, And Increase Teaching Creativity, Jennifer Grewe

Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions

Faculty burnout is a concern within academics particularly for the most student-centered teaching faculty. In attempts to support students, faculty can sometimes do so at the expense of their own time and energy that over time can become overwhelming. There exist many concerns within academia on the use of Al and yet this is a tool that could be helpful to teaching loads if utilized properly. This chapter explores ways in which Al might help alleviate some of the workload that teaching faculty experience, which is a start to addressing burnout issues. Ideas are shared in this chapter surrounding Al's …

Land Acknowledgement/Foreword, Tazin Daniels

Teaching and Generative AI: Pedagogical Possibilities and Productive Tensions

In the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education, the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (Al) stands as a beacon of both innovation and introspection, heralding a new era in teaching and learning. This book serves as a guide for college instructors who find themselves at the cusp of this technological revolution-those who are intrigued yet perhaps apprehensive, eager to explore yet unsure where to begin. As we begin this journey, it is vital to acknowledge the spectrum of emotions that accompany its integration into academia: from excitement and curiosity to caution and concern. Recognizing and normalizing these feelings is the …

Disentangling Cyclic Causality: An Instance-Based Framework For Causal Discovery, Chase A. Yakaboski

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Correlation does not imply causation" is one of the fundamental principles taught in science, emphasizing that associations between variables do not necessarily indicate causality. Yet, over the past three decades, extensive research has begun to challenge this perspective by developing sophisticated methods to differentiate causal from correlative relationships. This research suggests that correlations often involve a blend of confounded and causal interactions, which, given certain assumptions, can be disentangled to uncover actionable insights and deepen our understanding of physical, biological, and societal systems.

Accurately discovering causal relationships from data amidst cyclic dynamics remains a challenging open problem in causality research. …