The evolution of the higher education sector, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, pinpointed the necessity for agility and innovation in performing the increased load in administrative duties. Artificial intelligence (AI) showed up as a prominent solution for higher education institutions (HEI). This chapter explores AI's potential in administrative functions like scheduling, library services, enrollment, and others, acknowledging the benefits and highlighting challenges such as stakeholder participation, lack of knowledge, privacy concerns, and budgetary limitations. It promotes a holistic, phased approach to AI integration, underscoring strong leadership, clear vision, and collaboration for successful adoption and enhancing educational quality.
TopIntroduction And Background
Recently, the higher education sector has grown significantly. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO’s) higher education global data report of 2022, there is a remarkable global upsurge in admissions in universities and colleges doubling to over 235 million in 2020 compared to the enrollments in the year 2000. Simultaneously, the number of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), increased by 55% between 2006 and 2018 (UNESCO, 2022). This exponential growth, accompanied by the rising inclination towards the commercialization and privatization of HEIs’ services, as reported by Chan (2016), Qureshi & Khawaja (2021) and Rakhimbekova et al. (2022), led to a notable rise in administrative workload (Yousefi & Abdullah, 2019). The increased workload is usually accompanied by high levels of stress for employees and depleted resources for organizations (Górak-Sosnowska & Piwowar‐Sulej, 2023).
These escalating issues emphasize the necessity for developing innovative solutions to facilitate the complicated administrative tasks in higher education, while achieving efficiency. In this given context, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shown up as a promising solution, shifting organizations towards automation, efficiency and data-driven operations (Chen et al., 2020). Incorporating AI in the management and administration of universities has a positive effect on the quality and accessibility of higher education (Sethi et al., 2021).
Furthermore, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the higher education process, accelerating the shift towards automation and digital transformation, enabling HEIs to be more agile in the face of unforeseen disruption (Aristovnik et al., 2020; Biwer et al., 2021; Jakoet-Salie & Ramalobe, 2022; Orr et al., 2020; UNESCO, 2022). This rapid transformation has highlighted the significance of AI in enabling seamless administrative processes, while enhancing quality and reducing staff workloads (Slimi, 2021).
The concept of “Artificial Intelligence” (AI), first introduced by John McCarthy in 1956, has achieved noteworthy development and has become a fundamental component of technology innovation (Saraswat et al., 2022). AI refers to creating intelligent technologies that mimic human intelligence, including the ability to comprehend human language, identify themes and patterns, develop data-driven decisions, formulate strategies, respond to inquiries, cope with unique and developing circumstances, and carry out other cognitive functions generally performed by people (Naqvi, 2020; Saraswat et al., 2022). Nowadays, AI is prevailing in different sectors and industries (Suh & Ahn, 2022).
Within the educational landscape, HEIs started to realize the profound gains of employing AI in their operations, aiming to achieve a substantial competitive advantage (Hannan & Liu, 2021) and to evolve into smart universities (Furey & Martin, 2019). Becoming a smart university can enhance service quality while minimizing operating expenses and increasing profitability (Fernández‐Caramés & Fraga‐Lamas, 2019). It is important to note that smart universities rely on other technologies, alongside with AI, including big data, blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) (Phanichsiti et al., 2023). Jadrić et al. (2021) suggested that the transforming into smart organizations is now considered a crucial element affecting the perception and experience of students.