When I was about 11 years old a new technology product was released that looked like a cross between a yoghurt carton and a cash till. But I wanted one. The ZX80 was my first taste of computing and I used it to teach myself simple coding and learn the BASIC language. A couple of years later my father brought home a Compaq Luggable – a suitcase style PC with a build in keyboard, screen and drive. I loved seeing where the command prompt could take me.
When I started teaching in University in 1992 I was still keen on engaging with new technology, and with the advent of the internet and Netscape Browser I suggested to my then VC that we should build our own University website. He looked at me with sympathy and told me patiently that the internet was a fad and wouldn’t catch on (I hear much the same about AI today). In the end I taught myself HTML and built a website for my own course.
Having come full circle to the command prompt of Claude Code recently, I’ve been amazed by what can be achieved as I create my own Student Journey Management system (SJMS). But I have been equally struck by the antipathy towards the utilisation of these tools from former colleagues in the HE sector who seem to be in two states of mind regarding the use of AI coding tools – distrust or denial (and sometimes both at the same time).
This is understandable given the initial impact of early models of AI on Universities. On the one hand there were stories of students getting first class degrees using ChatGPT. On the other were reports of AI inventing material within works of academic scholarship. Some analysis also suggesting there could be a negative impact on the critical thinking of students who used AI.
Is AI Dangerous?
The dominant narrative concerning AI and Higher Education was clear. AI is a dangerous, disruptive tool that is unreliable and not to be trusted. It produces made up nonsense, or slop, and is often preventing students from thinking deeply and carefully for themselves by
giving easy answers to the questions their courses are asking them. This perspective permeates the sector’s view of the impact of AI based tools, and the ‘coding revolution’ has been tainted by it.
Having heard the cynicism of former colleagues I asked a friend who is hugely experienced in IT outside of HE about his view of Claude Code and the other tools I used to deliver my solutions. His response was overwhelmingly positive and he told me how he and his teams
now used these tools to deliver coding solutions in hours or days rather than weeks or months.
He believes that these tools enable non-coders, like me, to start developing and designing systems that had been previously unthinkable, and that from his perspective, as someone who had spent his whole career as a software engineer and development team leader, this
would inaugurate a new democratic world of coding creation.
So why not for those working in Universities? I often feel as I did when I tried to persuade a VC in the early 90s that a website was a good idea. I’m regarded with the same disdain by colleagues in the IT units of Universities, who are dismissive of my suggestions that we can
now do much more with less, particularly in building the infrastructure that supports the academic journey of students, manages course databases, and produces the crucial HESA reports.
I think my colleagues feel comfortable in the world they know, and fearful of the world they don’t. Put simply they discredit the tools because the challenge of taking on a whole new approach to system development requires a complete change of culture, attitude and approach in most universities.
When talking to a former colleague recently they were telling me how they were at a university managing the transformation from one well-know Student Record System to another well-known system. They described all the challenges I was familiar with from my own past as a transformation programme lead. Data migration, multi-system integrations, university process challenges. I paraphrased the move as being ‘from one sh** system to another sh** system. ‘ I marvelled that this approach was decades old despite the changes that are taking place in so many areas of software and system development today.
So many people always complain about the systems they have and want something better, but when you offer a way to build it for them, they realise that the expert knowledge they have built up for so long navigating the terrible old system is keeping them in their jobs, and
so they resist the change that genuinely would make things better.
The sad thing for higher education today is that many of those universities who wasted millions on substandard systems, and those continuing to do so, are laying off staff because of the financial challenges they now face. It is a form of madness that we really need to change.
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