Students perspectives of AI in higher education (2024-ongoing)

Students and AI project website

Brief summary: Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming higher education, yet student perspectives are often overlooked in institutional conversations about its role in various aspects of their learning, and their learning experience. The Students and AI Project centres student voices in these critical discussions.

This research recognises that AI affects students in complex ways—intellectually, emotionally, and practically. Rather than accepting simplified narratives of promise or peril, we examine how students actually experience AI in their learning: what excites them, what concerns them, and how they envision its appropriate use in higher education contexts.

Through this multi-institutional work, we create spaces for nuanced dialogue among students, educators, and institutions. Our goal is to move beyond assumptions and build shared understanding that supports thoughtful, student-centred approaches to AI integration in teaching and learning.

Who’s involved: Monash University, The University of Queensland, Deakin University, University of Technology Sydney

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The OnTask Project (2016-2018)

The OnTask project website

Brief summary: As Australian universities faced rapidly increasing enrollments, maintaining quality student support became an urgent challenge. The OnTask project, an initiative funded by the Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching, developed a practical solution: a software platform that enables educators to deliver timely and personalised, data-informed feedback to large student cohorts throughout the semester.

The OnTask platform integrates data from multiple sources—learning management systems, video platforms, assessment tools, e-textbooks, and discussion forums—to provide instructors with actionable insights into student engagement and progress. Educators can then design personalised, timely feedback that helps students adjust their learning strategies before small difficulties become larger problems.

The platform is learning management system agnostic, making it adaptable across different institutional contexts. By connecting clearly contextualised learning analytics with concrete, personalised interventions, OnTask helps institutions scale quality support without losing the human touch that matters to student success.

Who’s involved: The University of Sydney, in partnership with University of Technology Sydney, University of South Australia, University of New South Wales, The University of Edinburgh, and University of Texas at Arlington