The Essentials of AI for Life and Society: An AI Literacy Course for the University Community

TL;DR

This paper details the development and evaluation of a university-level AI literacy course aimed at a broad audience, highlighting its interdisciplinary approach, participant feedback, and plans for a more comprehensive future offering.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interdisciplinary, online AI literacy course for university communities and shares insights for designing accessible AI education for the general public.

Findings

Participants reported increased AI literacy.

Course feedback identified design challenges for broad audiences.

Lessons learned informed a new three-credit course for 2024.

Abstract

We describe the development of a one-credit course to promote AI literacy at The University of Texas at Austin. In response to a call for the rapid deployment of class to serve a broad audience in Fall of 2023, we designed a 14-week seminar-style course that incorporated an interdisciplinary group of speakers who lectured on topics ranging from the fundamentals of AI to societal concerns including disinformation and employment. University students, faculty, and staff, and even community members outside of the University, were invited to enroll in this online offering: The Essentials of AI for Life and Society. We collected feedback from course participants through weekly reflections and a final survey. Satisfyingly, we found that attendees reported gains in their AI literacy. We sought critical feedback through quantitative and qualitative analysis, which uncovered challenges in designing a course for this general audience. We utilized the course feedback to design a three-credit version of the course that is being offered in Fall of 2024. The lessons we learned and our plans for this new iteration may serve as a guide to instructors designing AI courses for a broad audience.