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Digital Summit programme

Monday 24th June

Registration (8.30am - 9.15am)

Coffee bar/lower ground, Esther Simpson Building.

Welcome remarks (9.15 - 9.45)

1.01 Lecture Theatre

Opening remarks from Prof. Arunangsu Chatterjee and Prof. Nick Plant.

Workshops (9.45 - 10.45)

1.01 lecture theatre: The application of Generative AI tools and opportunities for their critical and creative use in education

  • Dr Chrissi Nerantzi – School of Education
  • Mark Grattan - Education

3.01 seminar room: Essentials of Gen AI

  • Freddie Bujko - DES

3.02 seminar room: Utilising the potential of Minerva's Design Assistant

  • Melanie Barrand – DES
  • Hayley Whitefoot - DES

Short Break (10.45 - 11.00)

Presentations/Showcases (11.00 - 12.00)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Nick Plant

University of Leeds approach to AI Governance

  • Prof. Paul Glover – Earth and Environment

Building Strong Data Foundations for AI: The Role of the Data Strategy and Transformation Programme at the University of Leeds

  • Monica Jones – IT Services

AI-Influenced Futures in the Research Environment 2035

  • Claire Knowles – Libraries

3.01 seminar room

Session chair: Ayesha Hussain

Reconstruction of 3D digital porous media images from 2D images using conditional generative adversarial neural networks

  • Ali Sadeghkhani – Computing

Making visualisation scalable for explainable AI

  • Prof. Roy Ruddle – Computing and LIDA

Image Analysis using modern Generative AI and applications in healthcare

  • Dr Marc de Kamps – Computing
  • Dr Nishant Ravikumar – Computing

3.02 seminar room

Session chair: Ann-Marie Hartland

Plato - a tool for innovative use of AI in education to improve student learning outcomes and experience

  • Dragos Popa – Computing

Lunch (12.00 - 13.00)

Lunch and refreshments included. Please see the registration form for details.

External Sessions (13.00 - 14.00)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Rachel Brealey

AI in Higher Education: 5 Transformational Opportunities

  • Ebony M. Ramsey, PhD., EAB

How will AI transform higher education? This isn't just a question for the future—the changes have already begun. From reshaping curricula to hyper-personalizing student support services, AI's footprint in higher ed is growing fast. In this partner intensive, an EAB expert will discuss what leaders need to understand about this disruptive force. We’ll share our latest research, including reflections on the most common questions we’re hearing from your peers.


3.01 seminar room

Session chair: Megan Kime

Empowering Instructors through the responsible use of Generative AI

  • Nicolaas Matthijs - Chief Product Officer, Anthology

Nicolaas will explore the strengths and weaknesses of generative AI, focusing on its applications in education. He will discuss how to balance the ethical considerations and responsibilities when integrating AI into the educational ecosystem.

Nicolaas will also present Anthology’s vision for a trustworthy approach to AI and illustrate how higher education institutions in the UK and globally are adopting Anthology’s AI features.

Join us to explore the frontier where technology meets pedagogy, amplifying the potential of both.

Short Break (14.00 - 14.15)

Presentations (14.15 - 15.00)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Masud Khokhar

Navigating Gen AIs: Unravelling Student Interactions and Their Impact on Disciplinary Writing through Corpus Analysis

  • Dr Huahui Zhao – Education
  • Dr Yen Dang – Education

Can GenAI solve Physics problems: findings from a set of student projects

  • Prof. Samantha Pugh – Physics and Astronomy
  • Dylan Davidson – Physics and Astronomy
  • Kyle Elizalde – Physics and Astronomy
  • James Greatwood – Physics and Astronomy
  • Feng Tan – Physics and Astronomy
  • Eleanor Brownbill – Physics and Astronomy

Authentic Assessment: Or how I learned to stopped worrying and love AI (Recorded)

  • Dr Matt Bawn – Biological Sciences
  • Dr Pam Birtill - Psychology

3.01 seminar room

Session chair: Richard de Blacquiere-Clarkson

AI Literacy, Training Initiatives, Support Systems and Online Resources – Impact of Generative AI workshops in LUBS

  • Freddie Bujko – DES

Using transformer-based models to provide natural language interface for complex SQL enquiries

  • Sam Jacklin – Computing

OD&PL structures, advice & support for Gen AI

  • Blayn Parkinson – OD&PL

You’ve just used AI, but do you trust it?

  • Prof. Roy Ruddle – Computing and LIDA

3.02 seminar room

Session chair: Farzana Latif

Super-resolution: the process of building an AI/machine learning tool, in a simplified and manageable way

  • Ned Stickler – Computing

Building AI-Based Education Languages (BAIBEL) project: Taking a people-centric approach to identifying shared and divergent opinions on AI terminology

  • Dr Manoj Ravi – Chemical and Process Engineering
  • Kashmir Kaur – Languages, Cultures and Societies
  • Dr Matt Bawn – Biological Sciences

AI: A Warning from History? 'Assessing the Past, Embracing the Future: GenAI's role in Higher Education'

  • Dr Lorna Waddington – History
  • Dr Adam Richardson – DES

'Thinking about the Future' Presentation and Panel (15.00-15.50)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Arunangsu Chatterjee 

Thinking about the Future: Demos and Panel - Using Copilot to boost productivity and creativity

  • Ryan Payton – Microsoft
  • Cris Bloomfield – Microsoft
  • Alan Crawford – Microsoft
  • Joe McDonald – Microsoft
  • Dan Simms – IT Services
  • Megan Kime – DES
  • Masud Khokhar - Libraries

Microsoft Copilot is a powerful generative AI tool, capable of providing support in carrying out day-to-day tasks, boosting productivity and creativity. In this session we will give an overview of Copilot; what it is and how to use it. The session will feature a variety of demos, showing how Copilot can be used by academics and professional services colleagues alike to revolutionise your workflows. 

Closing Remarks for Day 1 (15.50 - 16.00)

Reflections from Masud Khokhar.

Optional Tours/Events (16:15 onwards)

Limited capacity. Please sign up during the registration process.

Tuesday 25th June

Registration (8.30 - 9.05)

Coffee bar/lower ground, Esther Simpson Building.

Welcome remarks (9.05 - 9.15)

1.01 lecture theatre

Welcome remarks from Prof. Arunangsu Chatterjee and Prof. Jeff Grabill.

External session (9.15 - 10.00)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Jeff Grabill  

Navigating the Professional Learning Landscape: The Road Ahead 

  • Prof. Martin Bean CBE 

In the increasingly volatile higher education market, professional learning has been viewed as an opportunity and an existential threat.

Drawing on his experience as Vice Chancellor of the Open University UK and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) Australia, and his work as a board member of Curio Group, Professor Martin Bean CBE will explore the opportunities and implementation considerations facing leading universities, the role of AI, and the big questions facing institutional leaders. 

Workshop and external session (10.00 - 10.45)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Dr Margaret Korosec 

Engines of Engagement: A Curious Book About Generative AI

  • Julian Stodd – Sea Salt Learning

3.02 seminar room

Experimentation with Microsoft Copilot

  • Emily Haikney - Libraries

3.01 seminar room

Using AI to make organising your life easier, through a variety of user-friendly solutions to enhance the way you work, from time planning to summarising documents.

  • Em Towler - Libraries

 

Short break (10.45 - 11.00)

Panel, lightning talk and presentation (11.00 - 12.00)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Dr Dibyadyuti Roy 

Critical Engagements with AI: Perspectives from the Arts, Humanities and Cultures

  • Prof. Jeff Grabill – DVC (Student Education)
  • Dr Katie Gardner – Music
  • Dr N. Kivilcim Yavuz – History
  • Dr Amelia Knowlson – PCI
  • Dr Chris Birchall – Media and Communication
  • Dr Simon Popple – Media and Communication, Libraries

This round table panel composed of academics from diverse disciplines in the Faculty of AHC at the University of Leeds will shed light on the scholarly and pedagogical possibilities emerging from "Critical Engagements with AI", within and beyond university spaces.


3.01 seminar room

Session chair: Richard de Blacquiere-Clarkson

Computing research in chatbots for education

  • Prof. Eric Atwell – Computing and LITE.

Improving Digital Learning through integration of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and fine-tuning techniques with ChatGPT 3.5

  • Abdul Karim Abbas – Computing

Harnessing Chatbots for Education: Implementing a Statistics Assistant using Retrieval Augmented Generation

  • Tegan O'Connor – Computing

Development of a teaching assistant chatbot designed for Data Mining and Text Analytics courses

  • Bashaer Alsafari – Computing

SumMARY: an academic Chatbot designed to bridge the gap of growing demands for ethical generative AI technologies in education and research

  • Shruti Naik – Computing

AI-powered chatbot to improve information accessibility and engagement for both prospective and current students

  • Shasha Nabila Binti Al Malek Faisal – Computing

3.02 seminar room

Session chair: Masud Khokhar

Bridging the gap between institutional AI policy and module leaders' knowledge broad, through a high-level overview on the manner in which AI, particularly artificial neural networks, operate

  • Joel Capener – Lifelong Learning Centre

AI in Action: An experiment and journey in notetaking and productivity

  • Antonia Jones – IT Services

Educational strategy to upskill students with AI - balancing applied approach of education with the theoretical approach

  • Dr Benedict Brown – Pharmacy

Lunch (12.00 - 13.00)

Lunch and refreshments included. Please see the registration form for details.

Panel, lightning talk and workshop (13.00 - 13.45)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: Bethan Corner

Student panel on the use of AI


3.01 seminar room

Session chair: Dan Pullinger

Learnings from Water@Leeds workshops on “Water and AI” 

  • Mark Trigg – Civil Engineering 

Using AI to develop discipline-specific knowledge - a case study of a core module for level 1 students in English

  • Dr Emily Bell – English  

Developing linguistic resources for Saudi Arabic dialects, utilizing advanced tools and deep learning techniques for natural language processing (NLP)

  • Salwa Alahmari – Engineering and Physical Sciences 

Did you bake this yourself? Cooking up a robust approach to Gen AI assessment

  • Richard de Blacquiere-Clarkson – OD&PL  

3.02 seminar room

AI research at Leeds Institute of Data Analytics (LIDA) and using LASER (Microsoft Azure Cloud based infrastructure) for supporting ML/AI algorithms on highly sensitive data.

  • Hannah Jackson – LIDA,
  • Adam Keely – LIDA,
  • Samuel Relton – LIDA

Short break (13.45 - 14.00)

External session (14.00 - 14.45)

1.01 lecture theatre

Session chair: David Baldwin 

AI Research at STFC and the road ahead for UK Research

  • Jonathan Booth – Senior AI Researcher, STFC
  • Prof. Vassil Alexandrov – Chief Science Officer, STFC
  • Prof. David Hogg – School of Computing

Jonathan will present the AI research being carried out at STFC followed by a discussion on the future of AI in UK Research and the road to Exascale and Quantum computing.

Concluding remarks (14.45 - 15.00)

1.01 lecture theatre

Close of inaugural Digital Summit by Prof. Arunangsu Chatterjee and Masud Khokhar.

Optional tours/events (15.15 - 16.00)

Limited capacity, please sign up during the registration process.