This is one of the new AI Design Assistant tools in Learn Ultra that have been made available to staff from January 2024. Their use was recommended by the Educational Development Committee in November and approved by Education Committee in December 2023.
Purpose
Use of this tool is entirely optional. It provides suggestions for new learning modules in a Learn Ultra course. It can be used to suggest a structure for an empty course, or to potential additions to an existing course.
In either case, it creates the top level learning modules for staff to populate with content.
It is only visible to staff with any one of the following roles in the course:
- Instructor
- Module Administrator
- Course Builder
- Teaching Assistant
Video demonstration
Step-by-Step guide
Finding the tool
The process is the same but the exact location of the link depends whether or not you are working in an empty course:
An empty course
To use it in an empty course, select the Auto-Generate Modules button displayed on the Course content page to launch the tool.
An existing course
If you want to use this tool in a course that already has content in it, start by selecting the pink Add icon in the appropriate location:
This will display the Add content menu where you’ll see the option Auto-Generate Modules near the top of the list.
Select the option Auto-Generate Modules to launch the tool.
Getting good results
The tool always tries to generate content immediately after being launched (based on the course title), but for best results you will want to configure it using the settings panel on the left hand side and ask it to generate again. Each field in the settings panel is explained below:
Description
If you find that the suggested Learning Modules are too general, then enter some suggestions of topics to cover or learning outcomes in this box in plain text. These are used to help refine the AI prompt.
Title prefix
If you like each Learning Module to be named is a particular manner, e.g. Week 1 [title name] or Unit 1 [title name], then you can get the AI to add this to the start of the generated titles using this select tool. The options you can choose from are:
- None – the default (no prefix)
- Topic
- Unit
- Week
- Chapter
- Module
Include images
If you tick this checkbox, the AI Design Assistant will use DALL-E to generate a unique image based on the title and description of the Learning Module. If you don’t like the suggested image you can easily replace it later.
If no suitable image can be generated a placeholder will be displayed so you can replace it with an image of your own.
There is now also a refresh button in the bottom right of the Learning Module Image to update or change the image. Clicking the image will create a new one.
If you don’t want to have images on the opening part of your Learning Modules, uncheck the box.
Include Descriptions
This check box enables instructors who want to write their own descriptions to have the auto-generated descriptions excluded so you can add in your own information. To include the auto-generated descriptions, tick the check box.
Complexity
This slider field is used to help shape the reading level of the generated text. The further to the right of the scale, the more complex and technical will be the language. The extreme left is meant to be early primary school, the extreme right, PhD thesis level. Experiment with this to see how it applies to your discipline. Remember that there is no point writing a description whose language is so complex that your students can’t understand it!
Number of Learning Modules
Use the slider to indicate how many modules you want the tool to generate for you. These will each cover a different aspect of the topic.
Note that you don’t need to accept all the suggested Learning Modules to add to your course.
Generate
Use the Generate button to apply your changes
Selecting the content to use
When you are happy with the output, use the checkboxes to the left of each suggested learning module to add it to the list of items to be added to your course. They will be added in order, but if you have selected a Title prefix, these will be automatically renumbered to remove any gaps.
Use the black Add to Course button to add the selected Learning Modules.
They now behave like any other Learning Module. You can drag them around the page to re-order them and use the standard Edit option at the right to change the image, title or description.
They are ready to be populated by you with suitable content and then be made visible to students.
Acknowledging AI use
When the tools were approved at Education Committee a student rep suggested that staff should acknowledge their use in the course, just as we ask students to acknowledge the use of generative AI in their assignments. This was seen as good practice and the recommendation approved.
Our AI Design Assistant: Acknowledging Use page provides some suggestions.