New certificate program helps students unlock and understand artificial intelligence

We live in an era where generative artificial intelligence, familiarly known as gen AI, is transforming industries and reshaping the future of work. Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that creates new content, including text, images or music by learning patterns from existing data.

A campuswide certificate program, Artificial Intelligence for All, managed by the College of Innovation and Design, will equip students with skills they need. They will learn to navigate evolving AI technologies, to use them correctly and contend with the ethical dilemmas that can arise through this powerful tool.

The program, which launched in the fall of 2024 with an AI literacy course developed by librarians at Albertsons Library, is available in person and online. The program is part of a larger initiative to make Boise State a leader in the use of AI in higher education. In 2023, President Marlene Tromp convened an expert panel on the topic.

While university leaders, faculty and staff have been meeting and talking about AI for some time - and some departments, like computer science, have done so for a decade - the recent introduction of generative AI models like ChatGPT democratized access, said Jen Schneider, associate dean of the College of Innovation and Design and director of the degree in Digital Innovation and Design.

"All of us are reckoning with what this means for students, for their workplaces and how we teach them in the classroom," she said.

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