Category: Colleges and Polytechnics

HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (Jan. 19th, 2024)

Spotlight Good afternoon all,  If you’ve been following the growth of our AI Observatory since it got launched last August, you’ve probably noticed that we’ve built quite an extensive database of institutional policies, statements, guidelines, and recommendations developed across the country and all around the world to respond to GenAI in higher education. In parallel, we’ve been keeping track of what they cover (or don’t). Combined with conversations with administrators and faculty, we now have an in-depth understanding of how

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College Finances 2021-22

Statscan released new data on community college enrolments and finances last month. That’s an excellent opportunity for me to update some of my favourite charts. Let’s start with what’s been happening in terms of income over the past couple of years. Turns out college revenue has been relatively stable at $14 billion over the past few years. The only exception was the COVID year of 2020-21 where income fell to $13.1 billion partly because of reduced tuition income (fewer international

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HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (Jan. 12th, 2024)

Spotlight 2024 is off to a flying start, and with that comes a second round of AI Roundtables! Thanks to everyone who participated in our sessions in the Fall, and to those of you who shared your ideas and feedback with us.  We listened to you! In the new year, we’ll aim to make these sessions as “roundtable-y” as possible, and provide more opportunities for all participants to engage.  In the upcoming months, we’ll be diving into various topics that

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HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (Dec. 14th, 2023)

Spotlight Good afternoon all,  2023 is soon coming to an end, and this is already the last AI-focused email of the year.  Since HESA launched its AI Observatory in August, we noticed that the pace at which institutions have been releasing policies, guidelines and statements around the use of GenAI in higher education seems to have slowed down. Has the feeling of urgency passed? Have other issues emerged that forced institutions to focus their energy elsewhere? Or is the current

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HESA’s AI Observatory: What’s new in higher education (Dec. 8th, 2023)

Spotlight Good afternoon all,  In today’s newsletter, we share articles about governance structures to coordinate institution’s response to GenAI, student perspectives on the use of GenAI, the need to train students on ethical uses of AI, ways in which GenAI can support student wellbeing, the need for better data training of AI tools, and more. Also, we are starting to plan our Winter 2024 AI Roundtables. If you’d like to suggest any topic or guest speaker, please reach out to

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