I just signed a petition calling for Norwegian universities to use research expertise on AI when deciding how to implement it, rather than having decisions be made mostly administratively. , If you are a researcher in Norway, please read it and sign it if you agree – and share with anyone else who might be interested. The petition was written by three researchers at UiT: Maria Danielsen (a philosopher who completed her PhD in 2025 on AI and ethics, including discussions of art and working life), Knut Ørke (Norwegian as a second language), and Holger Pötzsch (a professor of media studies with many years of research on digital media, video games, disruption, and working life, among other topics). This is not about preventing researchers from exploring AI methods in their research. It is about not uncritically accepting the hype that everyone must use AI everywhere without critical reflection. It is about not introducing Copilot as the default option in word processors, or training PhD candidates to believe they will fall behind if they do not use AI when writing articles, without proper academic discussion. Changes like these should be knowledge-based and discussed academically, not merely decided administratively, because they alter the epistemological foundations of research. Maria wrote to me a couple of months ago because she had read my opinion piece in Aftenposten in which I called for a strong brake on the use of language models in knowledge work. She was part of a committee tasked with developing UiT’s AI strategy and was concerned because there was so much hype and so few members of the committee with actual expertise in AI. I fully support the petition. There are probably some good uses for AI in research, but the uncritical, hype-driven insistence that we must simply adopt it everywhere is highly risky. There are many researchers in Norway with strong expertise in AI, language, ethics, working life, and culture. We must make use of this expertise. This is also partly about respect for research in the humanities, social sciences, psychology, and law. Introducing AI at universities and university colleges is not merely a technical issue, and perhaps not even primarily a technical one. It concerns much more: philosophy of science, methodological reflection, epistemology, writing, publishing, the working environment, and more. […]
torill
Of course not! Unless they want to start running errands for you. Next time try this: “Sure, but can you go and look up this book for me? I need two paragraphs with title, topic and the main references, to see if it’s worth looking into for next year. Should take you about 20 minutes. Just email the paragraphs and I’ll hand you the copies when you get here. I need this today and I don’t have time to run over to the library, as I am printing out student papers.”
Knut
Mean? Quite not. Just imagine when your student have to 1) get the information on how to transfer money to PayPrint, 2) transfer the paper so it can be accessed on her/his domain on the UiB-network, 3) Goes to UB to print it out, and 4) discover that the printers also have the possibility to scan articles from the journals, encyclopedias etc and send it as .pdf to your mailbox. Which is great, if one want to use articles from printed journals or encyclopedias in future assignments.
p.s. You should consider asking a student to run some errands for you. If the student has academically ambitions, it would be a great opportunity to learn a couple of things about handling information, finding references, copying articles from journals, cleaning up your EndNote-library etc 🙂
Scullyoslo
I take it you’re not using Fronter or It’s learning for class assignments? As a teacher in videregÂende skole where all the students have a laptop, all assignments in my classes are to be turned in digitally. For big projects, I tell them to hand in a hardcopy as well. Mostly to make my job easier, as grading papers is still easer to do using the traditional print media.
More often than not, there will always be some assignments I must print out myself…
Jill
I love the ideas of asking students to run errands 😉
Scullyoslo, no, we’re not using LMSes (apart from the Student Portal which is the UiB standard, but mostly just for storing files) – we’re mostly using blogs. For giving people feedback, though I really find paper is best – they’re reading each other’s drafts and commenting them and I’m sure they’ll find that easier to do on paper than on screen…
Leif Harboe
I thought this was something they stopped asking when they finished upper sec. school. Well, I do such things more often than not. But most of the time I don’t get paper at all. Have been doing assesment on screen for a few years now.
Arvid
As a teacher in geography in upper secondary school, an LMS (It’s Learning)gives
me the opportunity to communicate with students I don’t have
the time to communicate with in a class with 29 persons
that I meet only once a week.
Therefore, for giving students feedback, an LMS is a wonderful tool.
It’s far superiour to paper.
When it comes to reading and sharing fellow students’ drafts,
a wiki is probably better than a blog.
By the way, Jill said: “theyíre reading each otherís drafts and commenting them and Iím sure theyíll find that easier to do on paper than on screenÖ”
Why is it easier to do it on paper than on screen?
torill
Because they are sitting in the same room, reading through the papers, taking notes and talking about it? In that scenario paper is still superiour. Not to mention that not all students have or carry with them laptops all the time.
Scott
I wouldn’t even answer the email.