Helen Crompton, Ph.D., spends much of her workday helping people understand artificial intelligence. She also spends time thinking about what could go wrong.
“People might be surprised because of my work, but I am both positive and nervous of AI,” said Dr. Crompton, professor of instructional technology in the Darden College of Education and Professional Studies at Old Dominion University.
That perspective informs a working paper she is coauthoring for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO. The commission asks her and Admire Mare, Ph.D., of the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, to examine AI issues in higher education and their implications for institutional policy and practice. Dr. Crompton said Mare brings deeper knowledge of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa, helping the authors consider institutions with different resources and needs.
Their work addresses decisions universities are already facing: how to assess student learning, prepare faculty, protect information and establish expectations for a technology whose capabilities keep changing.
“It’s not telling people that they should be using it, or they shouldn’t be using it,” Dr. Crompton said. “It’s giving them more information and things to think about.”
The authors presented the work during Digital Learning Week at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris. As of her October interview, they were revising the paper ahead of publication.
One question running through the work is what students need to understand before they can responsibly use AI.
Dr. Crompton recognizes that graduates may use AI to complete some workplace tasks. But they still need enough knowledge of their fields to evaluate the results. Students who have not done the mental work to develop that understanding could enter their professions uncertain of their own abilities.
For universities, that means examining how coursework builds knowledge and how assessments demonstrate that students have acquired it.
The challenge is changing as AI develops. A generative AI tool can produce an essay in response to a request. Agentic AI systems can carry out multistep tasks with varying levels of human oversight.
Dr. Crompton described how those capabilities could allow a system to move through course materials and complete activities on a student’s behalf. For educators, that raises questions about how to verify participation and learning.
The working draft includes recommendations to redesign assessments and invest in faculty and staff preparation. It also examines governance and policies, placing responsibility on institutionsNews article template to support educators as they adjust their teaching. Institutions also should make expectations clear enough that students know when AI use is appropriate and when it violates course requirements.
Faculty and researchers face a related responsibility. Dr. Crompton asks whether they are handing over thinking to AI that they would expect their own students to do independently.
These questions are also central to Dr. Crompton’s work at Old Dominion University, where she serves as executive director of the Research Institute for Digital Innovation in Learning. Her research supports the University’s broader efforts to help faculty and students use emerging technologies without losing sight of the critical thinking and subject knowledge that education is meant to develop.
“Everybody’s going through it,” she said. “The questions I get asked are what everybody’s being asked.”
Her UNESCO relationship began around 2013, when she joined the University and was researching mobile learning. As mobile technologies developed, her research increasingly included AI.
Her work examines what educators need to use technology effectively, including training, technical support, policies and confidence in its value. Having a tool available does not ensure that it will help someone teach or learn.
The paper also examines who owns AI tools and what happens to information universities share with them. For institutions using systems owned by companies abroad, that includes questions about where their information goes and who controls it.
Dr. Crompton shared that she spends about an hour and a half each day studying AI developments. Her goal is to help educators understand enough to participate in decisions about the technology, including educators with serious reservations.
Her work also reaches educators through the institute’s webinars. Recent sessions have examined agentic AI, policies for generative AI and how media reports on technology compare with research findings.
She encourages educators to bring their experience, questions and concerns to conversations about how AI should be used reasonably and ethically.
Through the UNESCO paper, she hopes to give institutional leaders a stronger basis for asking questions, weighing risks and deciding how AI fits their educational responsibilities.