Artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT or Copilot is increasingly being used in teaching at DTU. One of the departments with experience in this area is DTU Compute, where Professor Rasmus R. Paulsen introduced AI in the course Image Analysis in 2022 and allowed the technology to act as an aid in exams.
"The challenge of using AI for exams is that we need to change the exam so that it still tests the students' academic standing. It's no good if they can just cram all the exam questions into AI and get a satisfactory answer. Therefore, we test all question sets before the exam and change the wording so that the questions cannot be answered with AI alone," says Rasmus R. Paulsen.
In 2023, DTU decided to open for digital tools and AI such as ChatGPT in teaching and, in the longer term, also for exams. AI is currently used in several courses and research at DTU, and by 2024, the new technologies can be expanded and used more systematically. The decision is part of DTU's mission to develop and utilize natural and technical science for the benefit of society and to provide the best engineering education in Europe.
AI is part of the engineering profession
In the Image Analysis course, Rasmus R. Paulsen teaches students how to use AI tools. An assignment in the course could be to use ChatGPT to find an answer and evaluate whether it is correct or satisfactory. It could be practical exercises in creating a generative model, which is a type of mathematical model that can be used in general, for example, to find cats in pictures.
"I see engineering as a profession that makes tools and uses tools. If I'm programming, I also use a tool like Copilot, which is an AI chat technology, when I write my code. It makes suggestions that are correct half the time, and my job is to be able to assess the quality of the answers," says Rasmus R. Paulsen.
The assignments for the exam similarly challenge students to think critically about information. This happens, for example, in exercises where students must be able to perform a principal component analysis of an image and describe how much variation there is in a large data set. In these types of exercises, teachers have changed the learning objectives so that the AI tools are an integral part of the professional skills students need to have. For example, a question in class could be: "Use ChatGPT to solve a problem or use AI to find possible solutions."
"Instead of seeing AI as a tool we don't want students to use because it's cheating, we ask students to use it and critically evaluate the result to make sure the answers are correct. We want the teaching to simulate the reality the students will encounter in the companies, where AI is already widely used among engineers," says Rasmus R. Paulsen.
AI and online tools in teaching
In large parts of the teaching, the use of AI is still not allowed because students need to learn basic academic skills, such as math, and demonstrate their professionalism in exams. In other higher-level courses, however, AI works well because the courses build on basic courses, focusing on their analytical overview and being able to argue why a particular tool is the best for performing a process.
Rasmus R. Paulsen points out that AI also leads to changes in teaching, where today he also uses online questioning tools.
DTU expects the rollout of AI as an aid to be a reality in all relevant courses and exams by the end of 2024.
