Leveraging AI for Higher Education, Research and Innovation

Putting the EULiST Community at the Heart of AI Development

The EULiST AI Toolkit aims to harness the potential of Artificial Intelligence to address real needs across the university community. From the outset, its development followed a user-centred approach, involving students, faculty members, researchers, and administrative personnel to understand their needs, priorities, expectations, and concerns regarding AI adoption in higher education.

Students, as the largest stakeholder group, were actively engaged through an online survey that collected more than 3,000 responses. Participants were invited to assess and rank predefined AI applications, as well as propose their own ideas for potential implementation, providing valuable insights to guide the development of the AI Toolkit.

The findings revealed an overall positive attitude towards AI, with the majority of participating students expressing willingness to use AI in their studies and academic activities. Importantly, they highlighted the need for applications that deliver clear pedagogical value, empower both students and educators, and complement rather than replace human judgement, expertise, and engagement in the learning process.

EULiST AI Toolkit – Release I

Building on these insights, the first release of the EULiST AI Toolkit introduced five AI tools, developed collaboratively by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU) and. These five tools address different needs across the alliance:

1. AI-powered course mapping: Identifies similar courses across EULiST universities, supporting students in Erasmus+ mobility planning and facilitating course recognition, curriculum alignment, and academic cooperation among university staff. The tool has been designed and developed by NTUA.
2. AI-based identification of research funding opportunities: Helps faculty members and researchers discover relevant funding calls from the European Commission, supporting the development of new research projects. The tool has been designed and developed by STU.
3. Discovery of potential research collaborators: Identifies researchers and academic staff across EULiST universities with similar or specific research interests, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, joint research projects, and knowledge exchange. The tool has been designed and developed by NTUA.
4. Automated text-to-speech generation: Converts written content into natural-sounding speech, making academic and administrative materials more accessible, particularly for members of the university community with visual impairments or other accessibility needs. The tool has been designed and developed by STU.
5. I-enabled multilingual translation: Facilitates multi-lingual communication across the alliance by translating teaching materials, academic content, administrative documents, and other written materials, helping overcome language barriers and promoting inclusiveness. The tool has been designed and developed by NTUA.

Pilot Evaluation and End-User Feedback

To ensure that the AI applications respond to actual user needs, the first release underwent a pilot evaluation involving students, faculty members, researchers, and administrative personnel across the EULiST universities. The evaluation gathered feedback through an online survey focusing on three key dimensions: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioural intention. The University of Rey Juan Carlos (URJC) also organised an in-person evaluation workshop and offered gifts through a lottery at each university to incentivise participation.

Results were highly encouraging. More than 900 participants provided approximately 2,000 evaluations of the AI tools, with 80.6% of the evaluations being positive. These findings highlight the strong potential of the EULiST AI Toolkit and provide valuable user feedback to inform further improvements and future developments for integration into the planned second release of the AI Toolkit.

Evaluation workshop at the University of Rey Juan Carlos (URJC).

Promotion of the AI toolkit requirements evaluation survey during the first Student Conference in TUW.