Obscure Guidelines for AI Recording Devices in Classrooms

Lee Tremblay was concerned when Georgetown University Law Center announced last year that it would use Otter, an artificial intelligence transcription service, instead of relying on the human note takers Tremblay had used for the previous two years of law school. .

“They were really excited and I was really skeptical,” said Tremblay, past president of the Disability Law Student Association. “I tried it, I hated it, and others came to me, saying, ‘This is completely powerless; you have to do something about it.”

Tremblay wrote an article for Georgetown Law Technology Review detailing the actions needed to ensure that the new technology met student accommodation requirements and was eventually able to return to note-taking by a person taking notes.

While tensions over transcription apps at Georgetown Law were new at the time, discussions about their use are becoming more common. AI recording devices are entering the classroom as students become more familiar with and dependent on AI in general. With that comes a host of questions about privacy concerns, consent, and the efficacy of old-fashioned note-taking versus bots.

But while many of these questions remain unanswered, students are moving full speed ahead with the devices.

“Everything is coming to the fore now,” said Marc Watkins, a professor at Mississippi State University. “The real challenge is that faculty don’t know about it, and many of the developers are going on social media and selling directly to students, not as an aid to learning, but as a mechanism for [stop their] listening skills.”

How effective can it be?

But for students like Tremblay, who sought out a human note taker as a refuge, the inaccuracies of AI transcription made what should have been an easier solution ultimately much more difficult.

“I think everyone should have access to whatever tool works for them; there are people where Otter worked well,” said Tremblay, who graduated from law school last year and now works at Legal Voice, an Idaho nonprofit that advocates and defends the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people. “Unfortunately for students for whom it doesn’t work, you don’t have to spend hours correcting a transcript — because then it’s not really an accommodation.”

Most universities provide note takers for students seeking accommodation. Note takers, who are also students, take notes highlighting important and relevant information covered in class lectures. The notes are then given to students who were unable to keep their own notes and requested the service. In Tremblay’s case, the note taker saved the notes on Dropbox, not knowing which student would use them, and Tremblay was able to access them.

Watkins served as a volunteer record keeper as an undergraduate at the University of Central Missouri. He said students using apps to transcribe notes is one thing, but apps that create flashcards or practice tests based on transcriptions can be detrimental to long-term learning.

“If you’re using AI to listen and synthesize and create flashcards, you’re basically just listening for the test and then you’re out of your mind,” he said.

Genevieve Rice, a rising junior at the University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus, is a growing rarity among her classmates — she takes her notes by hand versus a tablet or laptop. But despite her old-school leanings, she said if there was an AI tool that was free, she’d be happy to use it.

“I have found [writing out my notes] it helps things stick in my mind a little better, but I spend so much time taking notes that sometimes I can’t engage with the class as much,” said Rice, an Asian studies major and graphic design minor. “And now if I’m engaged in class, then I can’t take notes.”

Rice said she would use the AI-generated flashcards and practice quizzes in addition to her note-taking, not in place of them.

“I started doing vocabulary flash cards at the beginning of this semester, it was good for about a week, but then putting the extra vocabulary words into the flash card format became too difficult,” she said. “It would be nice to have an app for that. It would be an additional learning tool that I wouldn’t otherwise have access to because of my workload.”

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Daniel Limma, director of Northwestern University’s Law and Technology Initiatives, said beyond the potential efficacy — or otherwise — of AI note-taking apps, privacy is a major concern. Data can be streamed, and recordings from lecturers, as well as other students’ opinions during discussion sessions, can be used to train AI models.

Despite, or perhaps because of, these concerns, he thinks universities should start working with AI transcription companies instead of banning them.

“There are absolutely tremendous questions about privacy, so, of course, it would be better if universities understood what the value is [proposition] for the students”, he said. “And they need to think about how to integrate the platforms so that students can use them in a way that’s responsible and compliant with the laws that apply.”

What is included in a policy

Many universities have yet to create any policy on the use of AI in general, let alone a stand-alone policy on the use of AI recorders in the classroom. Several law professors stated that they believe the legality of recording a lecture hall depends on the state, similar to recording phone calls; some states require one-party consent, where one party member knows a recording is taking place, while other states require both parties to agree to the recording.

Fordham University has not established a hard and fast policy on recording, but in September, university officials issued “ethics and considerations” guidelines for the use of AI note takers, which focused specifically on the recorders that appeared on Zoom. and Microsoft Teams during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The proliferation of these apps came along and it was, ‘Oh, well, we don’t have to take notes, or [meeting] minutes,” “Oh, that’s a concern,” said Jason Benedict, Fordham’s chief information security officer, who wrote the courtesy and consideration guidelines. “Nothing is bad, it’s not a show, it’s just things that need to know.”

Benedict classifies the guidelines as “mostly common sense”: they suggest informing participants, obtaining consent, and respecting confidentiality. AT Still University, a medical school in Missouri, issued similar guidance, asking faculty and students to caution each other when using a note-taking app and to review notes with the knowledge that there will likely be some inaccuracy.

Limma noted that Northwestern’s policy prohibiting students from enrolling in a class is posted online, and faculty members are also encouraged to mention it in course syllabi. The university also records the lecture portion of courses for students who may miss class.

Limma said he is generally against banning these technologies, given their potential benefits. He added that even if there is a ban on recording devices, students can use them much more easily now than in the past.

“I can’t say I’ve noticed people recording, but one of the ethical questions is that it’s easier to record and no one will ever know,” he said. “You have an app on your phone or laptop; it’s not like someone has a big tape recorder on their desk.”

Last month Watkins wrote a post on Substack titled “The Promise of AI to Pay Attention to You,” which detailed the impending rise of AI recording applications. He agreed with Limma against banning them and said they could provide an opportunity for faculty to reflect on changes potentially needed in the classroom.

“You can’t stop it, but you want to talk to students about it and focus on your teaching and learning,” said Watkins, who is also the director of the AI ​​Summer Institute for Writing Teachers at Ole Miss. “If you’re just lecturing, it’s probably not the best way to teach. If you break into small discussion groups, have debates, involve them in active learning strategies … that’s going to be the best thing possible.”