UCSF faculty often balance teaching, research, and administrative duties, all while working to provide high-quality educational resources for students. One of the most time-consuming tasks in this process is creating assessments that align with lecture content, from quizzes to study guides. To help alleviate this workload, the UCSF Library’s Instructional Design team is launching a project to explore the potential and impact of generative AI.
The challenge: time-consuming resource creation
For many faculty members, developing assessments is a repetitive and lengthy process. Careful planning is required to ensure that the materials not only reinforce lecture content, but also meet instructional goals. The challenge grows as curricula evolve and student needs change, requiring frequent updates to educational resources.
How generative AI can help
The UCSF Library’s Instructional Design team is piloting a project using UCSF’s Versa AI tool to streamline assessment creation. Automating lecture transcripts into customizable quizzes and study materials saves faculty significant time while maintaining control over content quality and relevance.
Here’s how the process works:
- Upload and transcription
- Faculty upload their video lectures to UCSF’s media repository, Kaltura, which automatically generates closed captions. The captions are then downloaded from the video and opened in a text editor. Afterwards, the transcript is reviewed for 100% accuracy. This step ensures that all the content is captured precisely, laying the foundation for AI-generated assessments.
- Processing with Versa
- Versa processes the transcripts and creates customized assessment questions. Faculty guide this step with prompts, such as “create multiple-choice questions that assess understanding of key concepts,” to ensure the generated content aligns with their teaching style.
- Review and refinement
- Versa generates a variety of questions based on the faculty-driven prompt. Faculty review and refine these AI-generated questions to suit their specific course needs and ensure they meet pedagogical standards.
The benefits for faculty
The main benefit of using Versa is substantial time savings. Faculty can focus on refining AI-generated materials, dedicating more time to teaching, mentoring, and research without compromising assessment quality.
Furthermore, Versa offers scalability. As educational content evolves, faculty can easily generate new assessments or update existing ones, ensuring they keep their teaching materials current without an overwhelming increase in workload.
Using Versa
The image below shows the initial setup within Versa, where the lecture transcript is shared. This allows Versa to analyze course content directly, setting up a seamless transition from lecture material to assessment creation.
In this next step, we share a specific prompt with Versa, outlining the desired assessment outcomes. Clear instructions guide the tool to generate targeted, high-quality questions that align with the lecture content.
Lastly, this next image shows Versa’s output: a multiple-choice question generated directly from the prompt. The tool’s response reflects how effectively it converts lecture content into assessment-ready questions. This saves time while ensuring alignment with course objectives.
Interested in participating?
As we continue to develop this generative AI project, we invite faculty to participate in piloting the use of Versa to create assessments for their courses. Those interested in joining or learning more can contact the Instructional Design team to discuss how this tool can support their teaching and save valuable time.
Together, we can re-imagine how technology enhances education at UCSF.
Feature image courtesy of Steve Johnson via Unsplash