“Honestly I didn’t even know about the nomination until the day before the announcement that I would receive the prize. It’s a pretty big surprise and I am very happy and honored. I mean it’s always nice when you get recognition for your work and this is one of the best recognitions you can get, in my opinion", says Björn.
The nomination highlights Björn’s pedagogical skills, his availability to students and of course his work on integrating generative AI into the informatics courses and programmes.
“The huge impact that generative AI would have on our students’ future professional roles became apparent to me early on. Some in higher education thought that students would use AI to cheat and that there will be no end to the cases for the disciplinary board. I drew my own conclusions and gave my students a programming assignment where AI use was mandatory. I included a formulation that said any manual human work or manual editing of AI output would be considered cheating and would be promptly reported to the disciplinary board,” Björn explains. “The students thought it was hilarious, but it really helped them to start experimenting with it, and it made some students –who were believe it or not initially skeptical towards the utility of generative AI– see its potential”.
The integration and use of AI has skyrocketed at the Department of Informatics and Björn is driving it both at department- and faculty level with the LUSEM AI committee. His main goals are to increase AI literacy and to encourage responsible use among students and colleagues. In classes he highlights the importance of equipping the students with knowledge and skills that are sought after in the labor market. Next up is teaching the informatics students how to integrate AI into the systems and software apps that they design.
The Vice-Chancellor appoints the winners after a proposal by the student unions. The prize-winners receive a diploma and a salary raise in accordance with the local collective agreement.
In addition, a grant of SEK 25,000 is awarded to the department to enable study trips for the prize-winner.
The grants are allocated from the university-wide funds for education.