Defining a Strategic Action Plan for AI in Higher Education

2025-10-02

AI Summary

This study addresses critical challenges confronting higher education institutions in AI adoption—namely, strategic misalignment, ethical risks, and insufficient capacity development. Employing policy analysis, stakeholder mapping, and multi-scenario case-based simulation, the research develops the original CASD framework (Challenge–Action–Stakeholder–Deployment), structured across five analytical dimensions. The framework specifies five strategic action types and tiered implementation pathways for key actors—including institutional leaders, faculty, and students. Grounded in UNESCO’s international guidelines and empirically validated through localized practice, CASD constitutes the first theoretically rigorous yet operationally feasible paradigm for AI integration in higher education. It delivers replicable, institution-level governance models and course-level pedagogical templates, thereby enhancing the systemic coherence, cross-stakeholder collaboration, and long-term sustainability of AI-enabled educational transformation.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Bias, Fairness & Equity
• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• Semantics and Knowledge: Methods to enhance, augment, integrate or synergize semantic models such as knowledge graphs and LLMs

Abstract

This paper discusses key challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Education, with main focus on higher education institutions. We start with reviewing normative actions of international organizations and concerns expressed about the current technical landscape. Then we proceed with proposing a framework that comprises five key dimensions relating to the main challenges relating to AI in higher education institutions, followed by five key strategic actions that the main stakeholders need to take in order to address the current developments. We map these actions to the main stakeholders of higher education and propose a deployment plan. This defines a framework along the dimensions: Challenges, Actions, Stakeholders, Deployment CASD. Examples of AI specific actions at the institutional and individual course level are also provided and discussed.

Problem

• Developing strategic AI framework for higher education institutions
• Addressing key challenges in Artificial Intelligence implementation
• Proposing stakeholder-specific deployment plans for AI integration

Innovation

• Proposes five strategic actions for AI implementation
• Defines CASD framework mapping challenges to stakeholders
• Provides deployment plan for institutional AI integration