AI Literacy in the Context of Working with Sources: Pitfalls and Possibilities of Generative AI Models in Academic Writing

This study examines the integration of generative AI (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, into students’ academic writing practices, focusing on its use for finding and working with sources. Using the concept of ‘imagined affordances’ we explore how students perceive and interact with this technology in academic contexts. We tested six student-centric prompting strategies across three fields using ChatGPT 3.5 and 4o, simulating realistic academic writing scenarios. Results show significant variations in the accuracy and usability of generated references across fields, strategies, and model versions. Notably, some strategies based on students’ imagined affordances, though technically unsound, produced useful outputs for academic writing tasks. ChatGPT 4o generally outperformed 3.5, highlighting rapid advancements in GenAI’s potential role in academic writing. These findings reveal a growing gap between institutional guidance on GenAI use in academic writing and students’ potential experiences. We advocate for a nuanced approach to AI literacy in higher education that acknowledges students’ perspectives, fosters open dialogue, destigmatizes experimentation while emphasizing critical evaluation, and raises awareness of how imagined affordances shape GenAI interactions during the writing process. This study contributes to discussions on AI integration in academic writing, offering insights for writing instructors, librarians, and policymakers

The EU migration law simulation: Enriching higher education through a gaming tool for knowledge exchange

Developing, testing and applying an educational simulation tool preparing our students for a complex legal practice in which cooperation with European member states is essential resulted in the EU Migration Simulation. The simulation was designed to have students engage with strategies for protecting human rights, guarding national borders, or facilitating safe migration channels for a sustainable future under EU migration Law. This contribution presents the development of and working of the EU Migration Simulation as well as student evaluations from law schools across Europe, testing existing theories of educational simulation. This education project aimed to deploy a hybrid educational simulation off-line and online to offer European law and migration studies students opportunities for new forms of knowledge exchange. We found that off-line simulation was most successful for knowledge exchange and systems insight. The simulation requires a modest but well informed facilitator, which confirms existing knowledge on educational simulations. Furthermore, legal cultures had a decisive impact on the way students understood their roles, and thus in the developing of the roles during the stage of game design and testing. Moreover, we found that legal professionals were just as keen on engaging in the simulation as university students as it took them outside their professional ‘tunnel vision’ on problem solving and generating novel systems insight

Opportunities and Constraints in Advancing Research Management: An Account of Ghanaian Tertiary Institutions

What is new? The objective was to assess the opportunities that abound and constraints that militate against the advancement of Research Management (RM) in policy advancement, sufficient resources and investment and highly trained Research Managers and Administrators in Ghanaian Tertiary Institutions (GTIs). What was the approach? A mixed methods survey with a concurrent triangular strategy method was employed. Questionnaires and interview guides were used in gathering data and a tree-stage analysis technique was used. Data were analyzed using Stata v16 into descriptive results. Ethical approval was sought from the Committee on Human Research Publication Ethics (CHPRE) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi (CHRPE/AP/453/21). What is the academic impact? The study showed that RM in GTIs offers opportunities to researchers and other clients through the services that research administrators and managers render. Among these services are searching funding opportunities, proposal development, interpreting the terms and conditions of grants, monitoring project budget during implementation, etc. RM is bedeviled with challenges despite efforts to navigate the RM pathway. These challenges include professional development plan, mentorship programme, technological infrastructure, and policies. What is the wider impact? The study established that there are RM opportunities that could be leveraged and there are factors that militate against the effective delivery of RM services in GTIs. The paper recommends a deeper appreciation and effective use of RM services, and the adoption of effective measures to address the constraints identified to maximize research output and impact in GTIs.

Civic responsibility and civic engagement: An innovative approach to skill development for law students

UNESCO’ s in-progress reflections series identifies, among other focus areas for competencies and skills development, a citizenship curriculum that would encompass content such as peace, human rights, sustainability, development, values and ethics. These themes pertain adequately to legal education and practice. From an interdisciplinary approach, they offer opportunities for introducing experiential learning, when there is willingness to innovate. This paper presents a student civic initiative devised to translate theoretical knowledge acquired into direct civic engagement at the service of society. The initiative is an integral complement to the knowledge of law and basic legal skills. It puts students face to face with societal needs like human rights, development, cultural values and the diversity of their communities. At the same time, it cultivates in them a sense of personal responsibility to remedy societal inequalities in new ways, demonstrating how theory should inform practice. Their capacity to observe and analyse matters at hand sharpens faster and their critical reasoning improves. For instance, from real problems they see in society, they start looking at laws in a more critical manner. The attempt in presenting this paper is to show how the conceptual framework of unity of knowledge, from which true interdisciplinary approach stems, guided the idea of the civic initiative as a skill development opportunity for law school students. The paper will state the multifaceted problem the initiative set out to solve, its main aim and objectives, as well as the results of its initial phase of execution. The paper also envisages the scalability of the initiative as well as the investigative potential it opens up, regarding the many ways in which experiential learning enhances competencies and skills development in legal learning

Law and literature as experience: The challenge of empathy in global legal education

This article discusses how law and literature can contribute to contemporary debates about exclusion and inequality in global legal education. It proposes that incorporating literature into law school curricula can enhance experiential learning by offering readers second-hand experiences. We discuss some of the debates in the law and literature movement that stress the possibility and importance of fiction’s ability in mobilising affects and emotions that could improve legal analyses. The article thus uses the frameworks of law and literature and experiential learning to read Ceniza en la Boca, a novel written by Brenda Navarro, which tells the story of a young Mexican woman who migrates to Spain. We argue that the novel leads to a nuanced understanding of the role of law and advocacy in the setting of illegal migration

Being and Becoming: Addressing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Issues in Learning Academic Writing through an Academic Integrity Socialisation Process

Addressing issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in academic writing is vital in higher education, especially when considering the lived experiences and education of undergraduates from diverse backgrounds. This paper acknowledges the challenges faced by students unfamiliar with Western academic integrity standards, emphasising the disparities experienced by socioeconomically disadvantaged, racialised, and international students. The paper describes an innovative learner-agentic empowerment approach at a Canadian university designed to enable students from diverse backgrounds to gain the academic, cultural, disciplinary and linguistic capital required to practise academic integrity. Through a mixed-method analysis of 182 undergraduates in a writing support program, we found that students who responded to a reflective prompt on academic integrity at the start of the program wrote substantially more (mean 7050 words) than those who did not respond to the prompt (mean 1692 words) during the month-long program. Qualitative analyses revealed students' unfamiliarity with cultural differences, academic integrity practices, linguistic challenges, and penalty severity. This model suggests the importance of a proactive, learner-agentic approach to facilitate education about academic integrity and to address equity and inclusivity. The study underscores the importance of systemic pedagogical changes, furthering the dialogue on equity, diversity, and inclusion in higher education

Reliability of Large Language Models for Identifying and Classifying Content in Research Articles

GenAI has demonstrated functionality that seems, uncannily, to parallel reading and writing by identifying/reformulating information from source texts and generating novel content and argumentation. These skills are essential yet challenging for many students tasked with producing literature reviews. This study takes the first steps to investigating the feasibility of a GenAI-facilitated literature review. This investigation starts from the ‘human-in-the-loop’ position that complex processes can be deconstructed and compartmentalized, and that component functions needed for these processes can be delegated to machines while humans contribute to, or control, the overall process. We explore the hypothesis that certain functions of the literature review process, such as information extraction and content classification, might be able to be automated. Prompts modeled on recommended practices for research synthesis were designed to identify and classify particular types of content in research articles. Outputs produced by two GenAI models, GPT-3.5 and GPT-4o, were assessed for reliability with a human coder. Overall, the results posit concerns about the models’ performance on this task, cautioning against direct uses of GenAI output as learning scaffolding for students developing literature review skills