In a 2025 McKinsey Global Survey on AI, 78 percent of respondents said their organization uses AI in at least one business function.
At UW-Stout, part of a 360-degree approach to AI involves embedding some of those skills across all programs. Assistant Professor Cami Banger, program director of business information technology and digital marketing technology at Stout, said seeing that data on people seeing more and more of this technology is likely part of what sparked the university to explore teaching students how to use it responsibly and ethically.
“Part of the exploration, and this [might be] the same for businesses, is figuring out how to use it or what they can use it for to solve a business need,” she said.
As part of research being conducted at the university, Banger explores the application of AI for instructors and its implementation in higher education and business technology. By studying generative AI (GenAI), a tool which creates new content like text, images, audio and more, she looks at its usage in a Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework through a study titled “Reimagining Assignment Design: An Exploratory Study of AI-Assisted TILT Implementation.”
In addition to research, Banger also teaches a professional development course, AI Implementation Strategy, for students to design AI strategies for various organizational frameworks.
“What does it mean for students? What does it mean for businesses? I think people are still trying to figure a lot of that out,” Banger said. “And where my interests really lie is in how we can leverage these tools in a responsible and ethical way.”
TILT is an approach which makes assignments and activities clearer for students by defining its purpose, task and criteria. Banger said it helps to take assignments and ensure that students know the purpose.
“But when instructors are looking at their assignments, it can be pretty daunting depending upon how many assignments you have in every semester,” she said. “So what I’ve been doing for the last year is exploring how to utilize the generative AI tools that are out there in a way that can help instructors take what they already have, and use a prompt, which we have built a prompt here for instructors to use, to ensure that their assignments are able to get into the TILT framework.”
But as useful as this technology can be, Banger said it is not 100 percent effective and may never be. The research is to see what its usefulness is in those applications, while Banger said some of her observations have recognized that there is still a need to teach how to effectively use these tools.
“If you don’t put a lot of extra information in there, if you don’t put the parameters in there or if you’re not really good at writing prompt, generative AI — just like everything else — can’t read your mind,” she said. “I think that’s one of the misconceptions that I’m often seeing out there or hearing about even as I’m talking in faculty meetings and things like that. It does take work. It’s not something that you can just snap your finger and it’s going to do everything you want it to do based on what’s in your head. You have to give it everything in your head.”
Banger’s research reflects one area where the technology is being studied at Stout, as other research experiments with machine learning in engineering and manufacturing to help solve complex engineering problems and scientific challenges. In another area, GenAI’s perception is tested with human-written poetry versus AI-generated poetry.
With research continuing on AI, Banger said one of the things they are working on at Stout is to ensure there is a lot of work being done on the governance of AI as well.
“We’re trying to put a really good governance, framework and policies around this and help industry partners that are out there interested in furthering knowledge and work with these types of tools,” she said. “Really putting those guardrails and understanding the tools that you’re using that are out there, those are some of the things we’re going to continue talking about here at Stout, as well as in our classroom.”
© 2025 the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
