A roundup of what the Jisc Digital Practice team have been doing and discovering over the last few weeks. Lots of AI in this one, not deliberately, but it seems it’s been occupying our reading space this month. This edition has been edited by Cat (CB) and Chris (CT) with contributions from Kathryn Woodhead (KW).
Digital Tools and Spaces
Bro boost: women say their LinkedIn traffic increases if they pretend to be men As we potentially move to AI ‘personalising’ learning for students the risks of algorithmic bias are still becoming apparent. The male/female discrepancies on LinkedIn post reach has been a hot topic this week although evidence is largely anecdotal. (CB)
‘We could have asked ChatGPT’: students fight back over course taught by AI Students’ relationship to generative AI is complex and this story gives a useful insight into student expectations of technology and their learning. “I understand the pressures on lecturers right now that may force them to use AI, it just feels disheartening,” one student wrote. (CT)
Questioning the inevitability of better tech. Chris reflects on why we should challenge the assumption that technology is always on an inevitable upward path to improvement. Frustrations about the current state of web search and anxiety about the impact of social media’s recent evolution show that these technologies at least are susceptible to a slide into poorer user experiences.(CT)
Teaching AI Ethics: Copyright 2025 Leon Furze provides a detailed look at the current state of the AI/Copyright legal landscape. It’s enough to make your head hurt! He provides some interesting, subject-specific guidance for how you might incorporate this into your teaching. (CT)
Skills and Capabilities
New study reveals early impact of AI on job market in UK A Kings College study looking at LinkedIn job adverts to gauge the impact of generative AI on the jobs market. For me, the impact on entry-level roles in exposed firms is the most worrying but it’s worth looking at all the conclusions they draw. (CT)
Prompt Engineering Urges ‘Hermeneutic Prompting’ As A Powerful Technique Unlocking The True Value Of Generative AI This piece by Lance Eliot in Forbes on using Hermeneutics in LLM prompts tries to show how users can generate a response that takes the questions context into consideration as well as the direct request. I’m not sure I’d say the results he showcases are “powerful” but it’s another useful contribution to the developing field of AI skills. (CT)
Wellbeing and online safety
Why clear GenAI guidance matters to neurodivergent students. And how to get it right This article covers how to better support neurodiverse learners in terms of AI policies. It calls for clarity on specific examples of when students can/ cannot use AI, and how to create a culture of responsible and transparent GenAI use. Unclear or inconsistent guidance on what is/ is not acceptable use of AI can cause cognitive overload for neurodivergent learners, which can prevent them from using the AI completely for fear of getting in trouble. (KW)
The Monitored Generation: Navigating Autonomy and Independence in the Digital Age A recent feature produced by the Nuffield trust that looks at the tensions experienced by parents and children where they try to balance parental desire for peace of mind, the availability of monitoring technologies and young people’s need for privacy, trust and a space to be themselves.(CT)
Collaboration and cooperation
A United Nations online university for the poorest countries in the world: dream or reality? | Tony Bates Dr Tony Bates outlines the arguments for and feasibility of an international initiative to improve access to university level STEM teaching in the world’s least developed nations. Unsurprisingly, there are significant challenges, not least the provision of reliable infrastructure. He says: “I would put [the odds of success] at somewhere between a 10% and a 30% chance of success, even if the funding is made available. Nevertheless, the need is so great it is worth taking the chance, even at these odds.” For me, 2 things are notable for their absence in this. There’s no mention of big Ed Tech provider involvement from Tony. This is built around UN partnership with local universities; done with, rather than done to? Secondly, I would hope that, if successful, then humanities subjects would also be able to flourish. STEM isn’t the only key to economic and social development. (CT)
The Power of Stories in Learning Design We have a real enthusiasm for storytelling in our digital practice team. I was really sorry that illness stopped me getting to ALT-C this year. In particular, this would have been a great session to see. (CT)
Sustainability
‘I heat my Essex home with a data centre in the shed’ An innovative solution that brings together the issues of data centres generating too much heat and houses being difficult to heat. There’s a lot more to dig into here such as whether this is feasible at this small a scale and if community level efforts would be more efficient. Or the problem would be cheaper to solve given better housing stock. (CT)
Expanding our horizons
Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign \ Anthropic Anthropic managed to pull the plug on what might be the first AI-driven cyber espionage campaign. The attackers leaned on Claude Code to automate almost everything: scouting targets, stealing credentials, and grabbing data with barely any human effort. Is this the start of the robot revolution? (CB)