Fontys ICT has developed an AI platform that provides college students and employees entry to highly effective AI fashions inside a safe, clear, and inexpensive framework. The College of Utilized Sciences in Eindhoven and Tilburg examined the platform for six months with greater than 300 customers and concluded in a white paper that instructional establishments with their very own AI gateway can keep management over privateness, prices, and instructing strategies.
With this platform, Fontys goals to handle the rising fragmentation of AI instruments in schooling. College students had been more and more utilizing industrial companies corresponding to ChatGPT and Claude, usually through private accounts. This led to variations in information high quality and entry and created uncertainty about the place information had been saved and which fashions had been used for assignments.
Personal AI setting with full management
The brand new AI platform relies on a so-called ‘gateway structure’. Customers consciously select from completely different AI fashions through their very own interface. They will instantly see the place the mannequin is hosted, what it prices roughly, and what restrictions apply. This makes privateness, finances, and didactic use absolutely controllable. “Academic establishments should retain their autonomy in a world the place developments within the subject of AI are accelerating,” says Koen Suilen, lecturer and AI professional at Fontys ICT. “With our gateway, we are able to determine for ourselves which fashions we provide, underneath what situations, and for which customers. That is important for the protected and truthful software of AI in schooling.”
In the course of the pilot interval, the platform labored stably and securely, based on the initiators, with no privateness incidents. Each college students and employees indicated that the transparency and user-friendliness of the system helped them to use AI in a extra acutely aware and focused method. The platform additionally proved to be cost-efficient: Fontys retained central management over budgets and mannequin use and provided an alternative choice to particular person subscriptions. The system additionally ensured that almost all of AI requests had been processed robotically through European information facilities, which is vital for compliance with the GDPR and the AI Act. “We’ve seen that expertise alone shouldn’t be sufficient; you want a governance construction that matches your values as an academic establishment,” says Ruud Huijts, lecturer and co-author of the white paper. “AI is not a assist device, like conventional ICT. AI is technique. In case you take that severely, it’s important to take management of the programs you employ.”
Name for AI management
An vital conclusion of the white paper is that instructional establishments want a brand new function to handle AI sustainably and responsibly: the AI Officer. This individual or staff should oversee mannequin choice, information use, danger administration, budgeting, and integration inside the curriculum. Huijts emphasizes: “And not using a clear individual in cost, AI governance turns into fragmented. With the AI Officer, establishments can guarantee continuity, high quality, and security. This function additionally combines experience that’s hardly ever present in one individual: technical depth, data of legal guidelines and rules, and an understanding of schooling, mixed with the authority to make strategic decisions primarily based on that blend.”
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