With support from Utah Valley University’s Kahlert Applied AI Institute, CIO and Vice President of Digital Transformation Christina Baum and her team have developed Ask Wilson, an AI assistant trained on course content and accessible within Canvas that can answer questions, coach students and create personalized study guides. Ask Wilson is part of UVU’s broader vision to embed AI across the curriculum in ways that are practical, innovative and focused on student success, Baum says.
EDTECH: Describe the Ask Wilson chatbot and how you’ve approached its rollout.
BAUM: We first piloted Ask Wilson in the fall of 2023 with one biology course, and this semester, it’s in 44 courses serving 2,000 students. We have it in a variety of courses, which is really valuable — in-person, online and hybrid classes, across a variety of disciplines. We wanted to give students an approachable way to get involved with AI, something that is in Canvas with the curriculum they’re using, so that the responses are accurate and grounded to the course. We’ve gotten a lot of student feedback to ensure we’re hitting the mark, and that’s helped us quite a bit.
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EDTECH: What types of support does Ask Wilson provide?
BAUM: The chatbot has access to all course content, including lecture recordings captured in Kaltura. If a student asks about something in a lecture, Ask Wilson can send a link to the correct part of the recording. Students can clarify assignment details, find out when quizzes are open, get help navigating Canvas and ask for study help. We’ve worked to ensure that Ask Wilson coaches students instead of just giving them the answer, and it can direct students to academic tutoring if needed.
EDTECH: How do tools like this make education more accessible for a diverse student body?
BAUM: Our goal is to reduce barriers and make it easy and intuitive to be a college student. We have a lot of first-generation college students who sometimes need help navigating new processes and unfamiliar lingo. Support is also important for students who work or have families. If they’re doing their homework at midnight, they can’t reach out to their professor for help, but this tool is available 24/7.
As the CIO, my role is to find ways for us to leverage technology to remove barriers for students and make it easier for them to be successful. This tool allows students to have something that meets them where they’re at, in the time and the place that they need it. Education is life-changing, and we want to do everything in our power to make that easier.
EDTECH: Describe the next phase of this initiative, which will connect multiple course agents.
BAUM: Right now, Ask Wilson is specific to each course. We envision broadening that so a student can ask, “What are all the assignments I have due this week?” That allows it to become more of a digital assistant. We’ll also be incorporating the universitywide chatbot into the course-specific chatbot so that students can ask general questions about the university as well, such as the last dates to drop courses, or when finals are happening.
EDTECH: What’s next for Ask Wilson and AI initiatives at UVU?
BAUM: We’ve been focused on getting user feedback to refine and improve the tool, so now we want to focus on value-add. What can we show, datawise, to demonstrate outcomes of course sections that had access to Ask Wilson compared with those that didn’t?
In addition, the university has received a sizable donation from the Kahlert Foundation for the Applied AI Institute, which is really going to help us step on the gas in terms of AI. In addition to expanding Ask Wilson across the university, our initiatives include embedding AI curriculum into all of our courses and hiring cluster faculty to be embedded in various colleges to help students in each discipline use AI. Applied AI is where we see ourselves excelling. A rich part of that for the Institute is helping students leverage and create some of the AI tools they’ll need in their fields.
EDTECH: What advice would you give to other CIOs who are on AI journeys?
BAUM: The success of any major innovation depends less on the technology and more on change management. It can be the best thing ever, but if people don’t think they need it or they don’t trust it, it’s not going to go well.
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I suggest fostering buy-in with key stakeholders and putting together a coalition of the willing. Across the country and at UVU, there is a whole spectrum of faculty members’ reactions to AI. Going after the folks who are reluctant can be futile, so find those early adopters who want to help you. Find those who are resilient so that if issues or problems come up, they can work with you and give you the feedback you need to be successful. Identifying those faculty members and getting them to be champions is critical.
With our Office of Teaching and Learning, we cosponsored an award to recognize faculty who are on the cutting edge and trying new things in their classes. There are a lot of willing, wonderful faculty who are thinking very creatively about what they can be doing with AI. We want to tap into that and get momentum.
