Grammarly for Education Generative AI Pilot
Project Background
Generative AI is Heavily Used on Campus
Generative AI is a rapidly evolving academic technology. With an ever-increasing number of vendors and use cases, faculty and students at UT Austin have already adopted various generative AI tools. UT use ranges across disciplines and fields – from writing, law, business, coding, data analysis, image creation, video, sound, architectural design, and more. UT students and faculty are also actively using “AI Tutors” to support students studying outside of class. Many UT groups, including the Writing Faculty Committee and Arts and Design faculty, have issued statements on using generative AI at UT Austin.
UT’s Learning Technology Adoption Process
The Office of Academic Technology (OAT) is a centralized authority on campus for evaluating learning technologies for adoption. The OAT engages faculty, student, and staff stakeholders to evaluate all categories of learning technologies to aid the campus in developing a strategic understanding of a tool’s pedagogical effectiveness, user experience, and campus sustainability and longevity through the Learning Technology Adoption Process (LTAP). The LTAP engages campus stakeholders using a comprehensive evaluation process designed to guide effective academic technology decision-making on campus. In Spring 2024, the Project Team (with representatives from the OAT, Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Office of Strategic Academic Initiatives) will lead its first generative AI LTAP on Grammarly for Education’s generative AI tool.
Grammarly Generative AI Pilot, Spring 2024 LTAP
Why Grammarly? Over 3,000 individuals with UT Austin accounts already use Grammarly with Generative AI-enabled each month. “Generative AI” is the name of Grammarly’s generative AI services and features (GGAI). GGAI is embedded in the Grammarly for Education application and operates through a chat bot-like user experience, whereby a user may input information into the system and receive output. Like all generative AI tools, GGAI has both benefits and limitations for classroom use.
In the fall of 2024, the university developed a Memo of Understanding with Grammarly for Education to evaluate their generative AI tool. The University engaged with Grammarly for Education because GGAI does not digest user input into its LLM for training purposes; the application already met state and University security, privacy, and accessibility requirements for academic use; positive vendor reputation related to commitments to accessibility, and vendor willingness to provide a no-cost contract for the LTAP. As such, the LTAP can proceed in a way that ensures student, faculty, and staff data falls within the University’s information security requirements.
While GGAI exists within the Larger Grammarly for Education tool, this project scope will only evaluate the Generative AI application within Grammarly. In addition, the project will not involve or test using generative AI to evaluate or provide feedback on student work.
The overarching purpose of this project is to engage the UT community (faculty, students, and staff) in testing GGAI and to respond to the following LTAP questions for technology evaluation purposes:
- Objective 1: What is the pedagogical and educational efficacy of GGAI for UT Austin users?
- Objective 2: What is the GGAI user experience based on a sample of UT Austin users?
- Objective 3: What is the campus sustainability and viability of GGAI at UT Austin?
For this pilot, we are looking for two cohorts of users to test and provide feedback on GGAI:
Cohort 1: Active UT Austin instructors and their students from various disciplines.
Cohort 2: UT Austin staff.
All participants will receive a temporary Grammarly for Education pilot license with Generative AI-enabled. Training on using Grammarly for Education and GGAI will be provided.
Phases
The Pilot will operate in two phases: Phase I is aimed at testing the general user experience of the GGAI application; Phase 2 is aimed at testing specific generative AI lesson plans created by UT Austin faculty.
The Project Team, in collaboration with cohort participants, will develop a set of activities for testing. These activities will allow users to test the generative AI tool within Grammarly and provide evaluative feedback on their experience. The Project Team will design and deliver tailored, easy-to-follow asynchronous (whereby users will complete a set of tasks and provide feedback in the form of a survey) and synchronous “live walk-through” testing activities (live user tests) for both cohorts. Faculty or staff who are interested in contributing to the design of these activities should inform the Project Team at oat@utexas.edu. The Project Team will collect and analyze user feedback and share findings and recommendations with the campus community and with Grammarly for Education.
The Project Team will collaborate with faculty to develop a set of generative AI lesson plans for Cohort 1 to test within Grammarly. These lesson plans will include big ideas, descriptions of the learner audience, learning outcomes, assessment plans, and instructional activities that involve using GGAI in the context of their course. They will not involve using generative AI to provide feedback on student work. Instructors will pilot these lesson plans in their courses and use their regular process to evaluate student work before and after introducing the lesson plan. The Project Team will design feedback mechanisms, collect and analyze user feedback, and share findings and recommendations with the campus community and with Grammarly for Education. Based on their evaluations, faculty will also issue a set of recommendations on the use of GGAI in their courses.
Participate in the pilot cohort to use, evaluate, and provide recommendations on the Generative AI application within Grammarly for Education
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