Welcome to January’s Spotlight on AI in Education bulletin. With how fast things are moving, this will help you cut through the noise and catch what’s important. The bulletin highlights on-the-ground practice, institutional perspectives and trends in generative AI use across the sector and beyond. We hope you find this useful.

If you have anything you’d like to contribute or see in this bulletin please email EE@sussex.ac.uk

On-the-ground at Sussex

Workshop: A throwback to our second CoP and talking to students about GenAI

Read this if: You’re keen to address the hallucinating elephant in the room with your students.

Given is start of term, we thought you’d like to be reminded of the work by Dr Andres Guadamuz.
Reader In Intellectual Property Law (LPS) who spoke at the second CoP about the value of talking with students about AI..

Read more about our previous AI CoPs on the blog.

Institutional Perspective

Don’t miss out on having your voice heard for the AI Summit

Read this if: You want to have a say in developing institutional principles on the use of Generative AI in teaching, learning and assessment.

Look out for invitations to get involved and feed in your views. Each area (e.g. Faculty or Division) will complete a series of questions on this reporting form. We welcome responses from all areas of the university, as well as individual responses. Please respond via the form directly if you are unable to attend scheduled events – all submissions should be entered by Friday 28 March.

Find out more and book your place on the Summit.

Across the Sector

Jisc – Trends in assessment in higher education: considerations for policy and practice

Read this if: Your interested in ’emerging trends in assessment and feedback within the rapidly evolving landscape of higher education’.

From the introduction: ‘As part of this initiative, insights were gathered from our assessment and feedback working group and key stakeholders across the sector. This work aims to provide valuable recommendations for policy and practice, supporting institutions in creating effective, inclusive, and innovative assessment strategies’.

Find out more and read the report.

Further Afield

US chatbot dominance takes a hit

Read this if: You’re interested in the landscape of Generative AI tools, notably the Chinese made, DeepSeek.

To say it caused a stir maybe contender for the understatement of 2025! Within days, DeepSeek was top of the Apple App Store, some stock prices plummeted, then they had to limit sign ups due to a cyber-attack. Since then, Italy has launched a GDPR query at them and OpenAI claim to have evidence they used their work, it’s been a week for DeepSeek. As of writing the latest is that DeepSeek will be coming to Windows Copilot+ PCs soon as well. But what is it and why has it made waves. Check out the link below to find out more.

This BBC article has a good explainer and overview.

In case you missed it

Other links on the topic of AI in teaching and learning you may have missed.

• Join the Teaching and Learning with GenAI Community: If you’d like to join the community and be first to hear about events. Get in touch with us and we can add you to the list and dedicated MS Teams community.
• On the Hepi (Higher Education Policy Institute) blog: Transforming Education in the Age of AI: Challenges and Opportunities.

Disclaimer on any tools not supported at Sussex. Please do not share Sussex, student, colleague, sensitive or personal data via these platforms. Not being supported means they have not passed stringent Data Protection assessments and could put you at breach of policy and legislation. For a list of supported platforms for teaching and learning please visit the Educational Enhancement website.

This was a Spotlight on AI in Education update from Educational Enhancement