This paper presents a novel framework, artificial intelligence-enabled intelligent assistant (AIIA), for personalized and adaptive learning in higher education. The AIIA system leverages advanced AI and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to create an interactive and engaging learning platform. This platform is engineered to reduce cognitive load on learners by providing easy access to information, facilitating knowledge assessment, and delivering personalized learning support tailored to individual needs and learning styles. The AIIA’s capabilities include understanding and responding to student inquiries, generating quizzes and flashcards, and offering personalized learning pathways. The research findings have the potential to significantly impact the design, implementation, and evaluation of AI-enabled virtual teaching assistants (VTAs) in higher education, informing the development of innovative educational tools that can enhance student learning outcomes, engagement, and satisfaction. The paper presents the methodology, system architecture, intelligent services, and integration with learning management systems (LMSs) while discussing the challenges, limitations, and future directions for the development of AI-enabled intelligent assistants in education.

Geoscientists now live in a world rich with digital data and methods, and their computational research cannot be fully captured in traditional publications. The Geoscience Paper of the Future (GPF) presents an approach to fully document, share, and cite all their research products including data, software, and computational provenance. This article proposes best practices for GPF authors to make data, software, and methods openly accessible, citable, and well documented. The publication of digital objects empowers scientists to manage their research products as valuable scientific assets in an open and transparent way that enables broader access by other scientists, students, decision makers, and the public. Improving documentation and dissemination of research will accelerate the pace of scientific discovery by improving the ability of others to build upon published work.

This research explores the conceptualization, development, and deployment of an innovative learning analytics tool, leveraging OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to quantify student engagement, map learning progression, and evaluate diverse instructional strategies within an educational context. By analyzing critical data points such as students’ stress levels, curiosity, confusion, agitation, topic preferences, and study methods, the tool provides a comprehensive view of the learning environment. It also employs Bloom’s taxonomy to assess cognitive development based on student inquiries. In addition to technical evaluation through synthetic data, feedback from a survey of teaching faculty at the University of Iowa was collected to gauge perceived benefits and challenges. Faculty recognized the tool’s potential to enhance instructional decision-making through real-time insights but expressed concerns about data security and the accuracy of AI-generated insights. The study outlines the design, implementation, and evaluation of the tool, highlighting its contributions to educational outcomes, practical integration within learning management systems, and future refinements needed to address privacy and accuracy concerns. This research underscores AI’s role in shaping personalized, data-driven education.

Miscommunication between instructors and students is a significant obstacle to post-secondary learning. Students may skip office hours due to insecurities or scheduling conflicts, which can lead to missed opportunities for questions. To support self-paced learning and encourage creative thinking skills, academic institutions must redefine their approach to education by offering flexible educational pathways that recognize continuous learning. To this end, we developed an AI-augmented intelligent educational assistance framework based on a powerful language model (i.e., GPT-3) that automatically generates course-specific intelligent assistants regardless of discipline or academic level. The virtual intelligent teaching assistant (TA) system, which is at the core of our framework, serves as a voice-enabled helper capable of answering a wide range of course-specific questions, from curriculum to logistics and course policies. By providing students with easy access to this information, the virtual TA can help to improve engagement and reduce barriers to learning. At the same time, it can also help to reduce the logistical workload for instructors and TAs, freeing up their time to focus on other aspects of teaching and supporting students. Its GPT-3-based knowledge discovery component and the generalized system architecture are presented accompanied by a methodical evaluation of the system’s accuracy and performance.