Vice-President (Teaching and Learning)

Message from Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)

Dear Freshers:

We hope your first weeks at HKU are both exciting and fruitful!

We know that transitioning to university studies can be daunting!

To help you navigate, and give you an edge to academic success in the university setting, two self-paced, online courses are available to you as part of the Future Readiness Initiative – which aims to help students become future-ready in their HKU studies and beyond. A website for the Future Readiness Initiative is here: https://fri.hku.hk/.

Two courses

Both courses are online and self-paced, with about 20 hours of learning time each, for you to study at your own time and pace.

Course 1: Preparation for University: Essentials for Success, developed by CAES, highlights the differences between studying in secondary school and in the university, and emphasizes the communication and study skills that pave the way to fruitful studies

Course 2: Introduction to Research Methods, developed by FOSS, teaches research skills – but don’t let the word “Research” unnerve you
Almost every conclusion and decision we will make is going to be based on a kind of “research” as our society becomes more data-rich.  This course is designed to be easy and very accessible– so that year 1 and entry level students can learn the skills.  So, it is for you!

Completion of each course earns one out-of-classroom credit.  You can claim these as transcriptable credits in blocks of three.  So if you complete both of these courses, earning just one more out-of-classroom credit would enable you to gain an extra three academic credits on your transcript.

Students are welcome to complete these courses anytime, but we hope you do so sooner rather than later! So, we have made it easy for you–  year 1 undergraduate students in 2023-24 are pre-enrolled into the courses through the HKU portal. Students who complete both courses by October 31 will receive a $50 voucher for the Visitor Centre store.

New one-stop shop for freshman students

A first year student website – https://firstyear.hku.hk/ has been set up as a one-stop-shop site for a lot of useful information, both academic events and extra-curricular activities for new students—come check it out!

Engage, experiment and enjoy!

Best wishes – Ian & Pauline

Message from Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)

Dear colleagues,

Teaching Matters

As you are aware, assessment is an important vehicle for supporting and guiding student learning. The University has an overarching assessment policy which sets out the philosophy and principles that guide and regulate assessment practices. The key principle is that students should be assessed in an appropriate, fair, rigorous and transparent manner. Solid and timely feedback, not restricted to scores or grades, should be provided. In particular, the QAC Audit Panel has advised us to enhance students’ understanding of the grade descriptors used in undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses, and to provide better feedback.

You are therefore requested at the start of each semester to talk students through the grade descriptors used in their courses, so that they understand the level of performance expected of them. You are also asked to give timely feedback on assignments and written examinations, so as to enable students to learn from what they have done well and what they have done badly.

The Teaching and Learning Innovation Centre (TALIC) will continue to work on enhancing assessment practices and providing good feedback to students. If you have any thoughts or need any help, you are most welcome to contact the TALIC staff liaison for your Faculty/Office:

Plagiarism

The University is committed to upholding the highest standards of academic integrity, and has in place a Policy on Student Plagiarism in Undergraduate and Taught Postgraduate Curricula.  Please do inform your students about proper academic practice. Relevant resources could be found in the plagiarism website.

Best wishes, Ian

Professor Ian Holliday
Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor
(Teaching and Learning)

Message from Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President & Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching & Learning)

Dear colleagues

We are all aware of the significance of ChatGPT and keen to engage and experiment with it. From April 17 to June 30, 2023, the University will enable HKU staff to access ChatGPT via Azure OpenAI Services on a trial basis. Azure OpenAI Services offers a series of large language models, including GPT-35, Codex, and Embedding. It opens up new opportunities for integration with natural language processing, computer vision, and speech recognition in Azure Cognitive Services.

During the trial period, usage for HKU staff will be free of charge, though daily limits will apply. Based on the usage pattern in this period, a charging system will be developed for full rollout in the future. Once HKU’s Generative AI Task Force has established a policy and guidelines for student usage, we will also make the platform available to students.

To start using Azure OpenAI Services, please log in at https://chatgpt.hku.hk/. We look forward to receiving your feedback, which can be sent to ithelp@hku.hk.

Best wishes, Ian

Professor Ian Holliday
Vice-President (Teaching and Learning)
The University of Hong Kong

Message from Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)

Dear colleagues and students

Just a quick message to acknowledge the many hundreds of attendees at CETL’s March 1 and March 8 workshops on ChatGPT and generative AI. We really appreciate the campus-wide engagement with this step change in T&L. Special thanks to Professor Susan Bridges, Dr Cecilia Chan and Mr Donn Gonda, all from CETL, for guiding us through the key issues.

Our short-term policy will remain in place until the end of this academic year in August. That imposes no restrictions on the use teachers make of ChatGPT and generative AI in their classrooms. It requires students to secure written permission from their teachers if they wish to use such tools for HKU coursework.

We’re committed to developing and publicizing a long-term policy by the start of the new academic year in September. Midway through the process, we will organize lunchtime discussion forums on each of the five Wednesdays in May: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31. Each will address a different aspect of the challenges facing us. Each will be held in RRS321 at 1-2pm. We will announce further details nearer the time.

Meanwhile, our task force will start work in the next couple of weeks. If you’d like to contribute to policy development in this critical sphere, please drop me a line by the end of next week (Friday 17 March): ian.holliday@hku.hk.

Thanks again and best wishes — Ian

Message from Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)

Dear colleagues and students

You’ll have heard of ChatGPT, one of many large language models sweeping the internet and shaking up global education.

We’ve started to consider the implications of AI-based tools for teaching and learning at HKU and plan to launch a broad-based campus debate involving both teachers and students. Since the implications are certain to be significant, however, it will take a while for us to settle on a long-term policy. Meanwhile, we’re in the middle of a teaching semester with little room for manoeuvre as courses and assessments take place each week. We therefore need to adopt a short-term policy. This is it: As an interim measure, we prohibit the use of ChatGPT or any other AI-based tool for all classroom, coursework and assessment tasks at HKU. Exemptions require written permission from course instructors. Students cannot provide themselves or other students with exemptions.

Suspected violations of this interim policy will be treated as potential plagiarism cases. At HKU, plagiarism is defined as ‘the use of another person’s work (including but not limited to any materials, creations, ideas and data) as if one’s own without due acknowledgement, whether or not such work has been published and regardless of the intent to deceive’. Making unacknowledged use of ChatGPT or another AI-based tool, treated for these purposes as ‘another person’, falls squarely within this definition. Teachers who suspect ChatGPT or another AI-based tool has been used may call a student in to discuss their work, set a supplementary oral examination, require a supplementary in-hall examination, or adopt other measures. Our full procedures for handling suspected plagiarism cases are set out here: https://intraweb.hku.hk/reserved_1/tlearn/plagiarism/Policy-on-Student-Plagiarism-in-UG-and-TPG.pdf.

Teachers with queries may contact colleagues in CETL and TELI. These two central units will also organize workshops on ChatGPT and other AI-based tools. Students with queries may consult their teachers. To be clear, our current policy is that, absent written permission, ChatGPT and other AI-based tools cannot be used for any credit-bearing activity at HKU.

Best wishes, Ian

Professor Ian Holliday
Vice-President (Teaching and Learning)
The University of Hong Kong