Building Responsible AI Practice Across a University

Cassie Mallette, Program Manager of the AI Learning Lab and Senior Instructional Designer, University of Nebraska, Omaha

I am not a traditional tech person. My degrees are in sociology, and I have been teaching Sociology in-person and online for 10 years now. I loved the experience in the classroom, but also really enjoyed helping other faculty learn about new and effective teaching methods, and how to improve their experience in the online and in-person classroom. Especially with our ever-changing student population, I would hear from teachers who often were so frustrated with their students not being successful in a “traditional school model”; I enjoyed enjoy sharing ideas with them about what was working in my class and how it was having a positive impact on my experience.

About 4 years ago, I was ready to jump into the world of instructional design – a perfect fit for me. Being able to help faculty improve and design their courses, but also leading professional development workshops and courses on topics like AI, Accessibility, ungrading and more. I spent 3 years as an instructional designer, but once ChatGPT launched in November of 2022 and my boss asked me to look into it, I took the challenge of figuring out what it was and how it could help us and ran with it.

Two of my top CliftonStrengths are responsibility and maximizer, so normally when given a task, I have to complete it at a high level, in detailed fashion - I’m the type of person who is determined and loves to learn, so I focused my time on learning, sharing what I was learning, and what I thought our approach should be. I now spend my days with all things AI: facilitating our partnership with OpenAI, providing training, creating resources, assisting faculty with incorporating AI into their courses and more.

While my skills, dedication and vision got me to where I am today, I would not be the Program Manager of the AI Learning Lab without a Vice Chancellor and a Chancellor that see AI as a great tool for us and are dedicated to exploring and integrating AI into academics and operations at UNO.

I think efficiency and enriching student learning experiences go hand in hand. When faculty can spend less time designing and figuring out what to do, they can spend more time with the students in the trenches – building relationships, and helping them out. It allows us to decrease time we spend on mundane tasks, and increase time spent on the human components of the job.

When it comes to AI tools being inclusive and accessible for all learners, I believe you have to design and provide resources for all levels of learners. This means you want to design and provide resources and training as if no one has any experience with AI. This ensures that everyone can be successful, and if they need the detailed support – they have it. If they don’t need it, they can skip over it and use the knowledge they’ve already gained.

"We recommend our faculty include AI use statements on each assignment that includes if and how they can use AI, in addition to why they can or cannot use AI."

At UNO, faculty who go through our AI grant process are guided through what it means to incorporate AI ethically and responsibly. We work together to provide step-by-step directions that guide students through the experience. This includes prompts students can take and personalize, and directions on what to do with the output; for example: how to review and revise, cite, and prompts for students to reflect on and think critically about their experience.

We also work to make sure it is clear for students on when they can and cannot use AI throughout the course. We recommend our faculty include AI use statements on each assignment that includes if and how they can use AI, in addition to why they can or cannot use AI. This is both a learning experience for them, but also a great way to provide additional clarity in a college landscape where different courses have different levels of AI acceptance.

AI tools are so new in the grand scheme of things, that a lot of people have few to no ideas on how we can incorporate AI into our classrooms – most people have been afraid and focused on student use of AI for cheating, that they neglected to see the positive ways AI can improve education and enhance academic integrity in our classrooms.

First, AI can help us evaluate our current assessments and revamp them to better align with effective teaching and assessment strategies. I always recommend faculty feed their assignment into AI and see how well AI can complete it; this helps them understand if the assessment is vulnerable to AI use or not. If it does a good job, I tell them it is probably time to evaluate new strategies and ideas for how to assess the competency or how to make it more AI-resistant.

Second, AI can help expand our toolkit. It can be great collaborative partner that helps us identify and implement new innovative ideas that are outside of our knowledge wheelhouse. Whether that is to identify strategies for incorporating AI into assignments or provide alternatives for how to assess students, generative AI can strengthen the academic integrity of our class.

Even when it comes to incorporating generative AI in our classes, if we allow them to use it, teach them how to use it ethically, and explain why they shouldn’t use it in some cases, they are building their AI literacy skills. If we can teach students when and how to use it, the idea is that they will be less likely to use it for negative reasons, and more inclined to use it in the ethical and responsible ways.

While short-term metrics can be helpful to help us identify satisfaction and productivity increases and if it is saving time, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Measuring impact should be specific to a university’s mission and strategic goals. As a metropolitan university, our goal is to educate all learners and prepare students for the workforce – so we are looking to evaluate if we are doing that and identifying how generative AI fits into that puzzle.

Are we seeing higher levels of engagement and retention when AI is integrated into courses? Higher grades? Higher satisfaction in course evaluations? Are students building AI skills throughout their time at UNO? Are our students gaining the skills they need and being hired for jobs for the workforce? Is building AI skills giving our students an advantage in the job market? With Gen AI skills being in high demand, these questions are the real impact and the long-term success we are looking to measure.

Meet faculty where they are, share what others are doing on campus, and provide support.

Everyone is at a different spot with AI; many people know it isn’t going anywhere, but struggle with getting started or integrating it. I’m a firm believe that AI is not for everything, but can be a supportive tool in a lot of things. Understand that not everyone thinks generative AI is the best, and that is okay.

In addition, provide space for people to share concerns but also share their success stories. In the 2024-2025 school year, we met twice a month to discuss what was working well for people, and what people were struggling with. We also held an AI summit where faculty and staff demonstrated how they were using AI. When people see colleagues using AI successfully, they are more likely to try it out for themselves.

And last, without providing support, incorporating AI can be a frustration and an additional to do for faculty. Providing workshops, tools, support and more can be the difference maker in their experience and faculty jumping on board.

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