Understanding and Shaping Generative AI Integration in Computer Science Education
Generative AI arrived in university computer science teaching faster than policy or educational wisdom. Staff and students are both using it, often without a shared understanding of what counts as appropriate use, and there was little evidence about what people were actually doing with it.
This £17,563 Principal’s Teaching Award Scheme project at the University of Edinburgh set out to gather that evidence. I worked on it as a Co-Investigator, alongside colleagues in Informatics, Mathematics, and Business – a deliberately cross-School team, since the questions are not specific to any one discipline.
The project ran surveys and focus groups with staff and students to understand current and potential use cases for generative AI in computer science education at the university, with the aim of informing how the institution shapes its integration rather than simply reacting to it.
Hi 👋😊! I’m Vidminas (most people call me Vid), a postdoc on the CHAILD project splitting time between the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford and the Institute of Education, University College London.
I am interested in technology and education, and more specifically researching and developing technologies that empower people. The current CHAILD project focus is about defining and designing for agency in children and young people’s use of AI tools.
I completed my PhD at the Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation at the University of Edinburgh in March 2026, supervised by Professor Fiona McNeill and Professor Judy Robertson. The project was about better understanding and designing tools to help teachers search for educational resources.
I am always keen to chat about teaching and learning, human-computer interaction, participatory research, and designing applications for good, feel free to get in touch!