AI Conversation Overview
It's tough to have 1:1 conversations with every student, especially in large courses. AI Conversation is specifically designed as an interactive activity in which students can actively participate. Instructors can create an AI Conversation in their courses, outlining a topic and an AI persona, and select the type of conversation for the students to engage in. Within the AI Conversation functionality, instructors can choose between two options: Socratic Questioning, in which the AI persona encourages students to think critically through continuous questioning, or Role Play, which allows students to play out a scenario with the AI persona.
Socratic Questioning
This is a guided questioning activity or Socratic exercise. The AI persona will not confirm or reject any student response but moves students through a series of questions. At the end of the conversation, students reflect the activity, highlighting weaknesses or strengths in their learning, or if the AI bot showed bias, hallucinations, or inaccuracies. On submission, the instructor will receive a transcript of the conversation and reflection, giving full transparency of the interactions. This is a great way to have a thought-provoking dialogue on the course topics without having individual 1:1's, which for larger or more complex courses, can be difficult to do.
AI Conversation allows instructors to generate an image for the AI Conversation persona using generative AI.
These functions are subject to the limitations and availability of the Azure OpenAI Service and are subject to change. Please check the relevant release notes for details.
Role Play
The Role Play feature lets instructors set up simulated conversations for their students by defining specific roles for both the AI persona and students. This interactive option enhances learning and training experiences by allowing students to practice communication skills in realistic scenarios, providing active learning opportunities. With customizable personality traits for the AI persona and contextual prompts, the Role Play feature fosters engaging and dynamic exchanges, enriching the overall learning process and encouraging critical thinking.
Instructors can customize the AI persona by assigning it a name and image. They also define the AI persona's personality traits and select the complexity of its responses. The personality traits assigned to the AI persona in this Role Play option shape its responses and interactions.
Please note: Instructors should select the personality traits carefully and preview the simulated conversation, as the personality traits significantly influence the tone and content of the conversation. For example, if the instructor sets up the AI persona to be warm and empathetic, the AI persona will respond with these traits. If an instructor sets up the AI persona to be controversial or biased, the AI persona’s output will likely be controversial or biased. The AI persona will also not always challenge controversial, biased, or dangerous ideas from students.
As part of our testing of this functionality, Anthology reviewed and discussed these outputs to determine if the functionality should be limited to avoid any bias or inappropriate output. We concluded that, on balance, institutions and instructors should have the academic freedom to let students engage in simulated conversations that may be controversial or biased. At the same time, we understand that there are limits to the output that the AI persona should be able to produce. Accordingly, Instructors are ultimately responsible for the output of AI Conversation and the dialogue students will encounter through the Role Play functionality. In our testing, the existing guardrails implemented by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthology prevented any output that was illegal or otherwise did not meet our Trustworthy AI standards. We will continue to monitor this feature and any related customer feedback to ensure we can make changes that may be necessary for this feature to meet our Trustworthy AI standards.
How Does the AI System Work?
AI Conversation leverages Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to auto-generate outputs. This is achieved by using information provided by the instructor within the Socratic or Role Play option itself such as topic, AI persona, personality traits, and complexity, along with our prompt to facilitate the responses. For an explanation of how the Azure OpenAI Service and the underlying OpenAI GPT large language models work in detail, please refer to the Introduction section of Microsoft’s Transparency Note and the links provided within it.
The AI Conversation functionalities are subject to the limitations and availability of the Azure OpenAI Service and are subject to change.
Where is the AI System Hosted?
Anthology currently uses multiple global Azure OpenAI Service instances. The primary instance is hosted in the United States but at times we may utilize resources in other locations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, or France to provide the best availability option for the Azure OpenAI Service for our clients.
All client course data and instructor input used for the input and all output generated by AI Conversation is stored in the client’s existing Blackboard database by Anthology.
How is the AI System Trained?
Anthology is not involved in the training of the large language models that power the AI Conversation functionalities. These models are trained by OpenAI / Microsoft as part of the Azure OpenAI Service that power the AI Conversation functionalities. Microsoft provides information about how the large language models are trained in the Introduction section of Microsoft’s Transparency Note and the links provided within it.
Anthology does not further fine-tune the Azure OpenAI Service using our own or our clients’ data.
What Happens With Personal Information Collected by the System?
Client data is not used for (re)training the AI System. Microsoft contractually commits in its Azure OpenAI terms with Anthology to not use any input into, or output of, the Azure OpenAI for the (re)training of the large language model. The same commitment is made in the Microsoft documentation on Data, privacy, and security for Azure OpenAI Service. Anthology only uses the information collected in connection with AI Conversation to provide, maintain, and support AI Conversation and where we have the contractual permission to do so in accordance with applicable law. You can find more information about Anthology’s approach to data privacy in our Trust Center.
Only limited course information is provided to Microsoft for the Azure OpenAI Service. This should generally not include personal information (except in cases where personal information is included in the topic, AI Persona, or Personality fields, or the student’s questions and responses to the AI bot). Additionally, any information the instructors choose to include in the prompt will be accessible.
Microsoft does not use any Anthology data nor Anthology client data it has access to (as part of the Azure OpenAI Service) to improve the OpenAI models, to improve its own or third-party products services, or to automatically improve the Azure OpenAI models for Anthology’s use in Anthology’s resource. The models are stateless. Microsoft reviews prompts and output for its content filtering. Prompts and output are only stored for up to 30 days.
You can find more information about the data privacy practices regarding the Azure OpenAI Service in the Microsoft documentation on Data, privacy, and security for Azure OpenAI Service.
To learn more see AI Conversation Transparency Notes.
Setting Up AI Conversations
There are two elements to the activity:
- AI Conversation
- This lets students think critically about the topic that the instructor designs.
- Reflection question
- This asks the student to share their thoughts on the activity. The reflection question also lets the student flag any bias or errors from the AI as part of our Trustworthy AI Approach. Reflection helps students understand the responsible use of AI services.
Instructors have the following configuration options:
- A topic for the AI Conversation
- An AI persona including a name, avatar (can be uploaded or generated), and personality trait
- Complexity level of responses
- Edit the reflection question, guiding the student on how best to reflect on this activity
On submission, the instructor can review the AI conversation transcript and the student's reflection. The AI Conversation is a formative assessment by default, but you’re not restricted to this option.
Image 1. Instructor setting up a topic, AI Persona, and Reflection question
Image 2. Instructor previewing the AI Conversation before making it visible to students
Image 3. A Student participating in the AI Conversation
Image 4. Instructor view of a submitted AI Conversation and reflection question
For administrators: In the building block, ‘AI Design Assistant and Unsplash,' a new option called ‘AI Chat Conversation’ is available. The default state is 'off.' When this feature is ‘on,’ the privilege needs to be assigned to course roles as necessary, such as Instructor. The privilege that needs assigning is ‘Use AI Design Assistant.' When that role creates an AI Conversation in a course that’s visible to students, students will be able to complete the activity. Note that toggling this feature to ‘off’ after deployment will stop the AI Conversation services. Therefore, any AI conversation activities visible to students will not operate as expected.