Foreword

The University of Florida is embarking on an ambitious goal—we want to be the nation’s first AI University. In part, we’ll do that by teaching artificial intelligence to our students across the full breadth of disciplines we offer at the university. That is no small feat given the academic catalog of a comprehensive university like the University of Florida. UF’s philosophy is that AI is already becoming ubiquitous in the businesses and industries that hire our students once they graduate. To prepare our students for highly competitive, AI-enabled jobs, we offer courses in AI and Data Science to students in any major. Some students might want to obtain a passing familiarity with AI, whereas other might want to apply it in their field, or gain a deeper engagement and create new AI.

Creating artificial intelligence courses in dozens of majors across sixteen different colleges is a significant undertaking. It would not be possible without a lot of dedicated people leading the way. This e-book is the culmination of two Faculty Learning Communities (FLCs) who gathered over the course of an academic year to discuss how to teach AI well. Some faculty were self-proclaimed novices who wanted to learn enough to add an AI module to an existing course. Other faculty were experts interested in creating brand new AI courses using the most up-to-date pedagogical techniques. Together, they learned about AI and course development, and created a roadmap, in the form of this e-book, for colleagues following in their footsteps.

If you want to learn about artificial intelligence and incorporate it into a college/university course, then this book is a foundational guide you should use to get started. It assumes nothing and begins with basic terms and concepts used in AI and Data Science. The book grapples with the difficult question, “what is Artificial Intelligence?”—an incredibly broad term that means different things to different people. This e-book examines that question from different perspectives, which helps readers with varying degrees of familiarity connect to the content within the e-book. Understandably, there may be faculty and students across different disciplines who have an aversion to computer programming or using artificial intelligence in teaching. This e-book addresses that concern head-on before diving into incorporating teaching tools, strategies, and assignments.

We want artificial intelligence practices to adhere to and uphold certain ethical standards, not just at the University of Florida, but everywhere. We aspire to ensure it is equitable in ways that allow the technology to benefit all people. To begin modeling these principles, we offer UF’s Undergraduate Certificate in AI, which is available to any student, and requires students to complete a course dedicated to the ethics of AI. Similarly, the authors have written a chapter that focuses on ethics within the field of artificial intelligence. Lastly, and specific to UF’s rapidly evolving AI research environment, we have included a chapter called Introduction to HiPerGator and UFIT Research Computing, which is structured to get you started and quickly engaged in high-performance computing at UF.

This e-book is designed to prepare faculty for adding AI content to university courses. Future editions of this book will incorporate new methods, best practices, teaching tools, and assignments. We hope that many faculty across the university will add to this e-book over time so that as it grows and reflects more applicable uses from the greater UF community. Each of us at UF owes a debt of gratitude for the time and dedication that the authors poured into this volume. I know that it will help UF in its mission to teach AI Across the Curriculum and become the nation’s first AI University.

A heartfelt thank you to all who participated.

David L Reed, PhD

Inaugural Director of the AI2 Center

University of Florida