The Place of Artificial Intelligence Ethical Literacy in Higher Education: Insights from Lecturers and Postgraduate Students in Tanzania

Abstract

Tremendous adoption and utilization of Artificial Intelligence tools have brought enormous opportunities and raised ethical concerns in higher education. This study explored the place of AI ethical literacy in higher education curricula in Tanzania. Specifically, it sought lecturers’ and students’ perspectives on the need for integrating AI ethical literacy and the reasons for their perspectives. It also inquired their opinions on ethical aspects to be integrated into the curriculum. It was a qualitative case study design conducted in a selected public university involving 18 participants including 15 postgraduate students and 3 lecturers. The participants were purposively selected based on their roles and course undertaken. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document reviews and analysed thematically. The findings revealed a consensus that AI ethical literacy should be integrated due to the increased ethical issues, the absence of AI ethical literacy training in the existing programmes and the widespread AI adoption. The participants proposed the inclusion of key concepts of AI ethics, security and privacy of data, intellectual property and copyrights, academic honesty, AI biases and national and international AI ethical guidelines. The study concluded that the integration of AI ethical literacy into higher education is crucial to for students’ responsible engagement with AI tools.