A bold path toward an innovative future has set York University up as an emerging as a leader in artificial intelligence (AI) innovations.
The development of YU-AURA (Automated University Response Assistant), York University’s in-house AI platform, has offered a revolutionary solution to enhance efficiency, streamline processes and empower faculty, staff and students. It's also gaining attention from other Universities, and setting the standard for what AI has to offer in the post-secondary sector.
York first embarked on its AI journey in 2018 when, under the leadership of then-Chief Information Officer Donald Ipperciel, the University established a dedicated team titled IT Innovation within its University Information Technology (UIT) department. Focused on innovation and emerging technologies, the team’s directive was simple: experiment with emerging technologies, push boundaries and embrace failure as a stepping stone to success.
One of the team’s first major projects was the development and launch in 2020 of SAVY, a student virtual assistant powered by the AI platform IBM Watson. Then, when generative AI made significant advancements with the release of ChatGPT in 2022, the York UIT team looked to update SAVY, but saw an opportunity to do something bigger.
“We thought, ‘Why stop there?'" recalls Vidur Kalive, York's AI architect lead, who collaborated on the project with Patrick Thibaudeau, director of IT innovation. He and his team wondered if they could build a scalable AI platform that could allow anyone at the University to build custom AI solutions tailored to their needs.
Using open-source technology, they proceed with a primary goal in mind: create an AI platform that would be accessible to faculty, staff and students with a no-code, user-friendly interface. This would allow individuals with no technical background to develop and train AI solutions for their specific needs and to streamline day-to-day processes.
“The nature of conversations we were having around AI was to target quick wins,” says Kalive. “We wanted to build something that would let them embrace AI quickly, securely and responsibly and in a small way.”
The result was YU-AURA, which launched in Fall 2024, and the team followed that innovation by targeting three kinds of use cases to help streamline productivity, innovation and enhanced learning experiences to create workflow efficiencies and the automation of repetitive tasks.
One use case that has been deployed enables faculty members to build research assistants tailored to their fields or individual projects. With YU-AURA, faculty can input hundreds of journal articles, research notes, data sets and other materials into the AI, creating a personalized database of knowledge to query.
Another use case available to faculty is the creation of course assistants. A professor can specifically train YU-AURA on their syllabus, course content, reading materials and more. Once linked to eClass, professors can direct students with common questions to use the tailored AI course assistant.
Lastly, the team has outlined numerous administrative use cases possible across the University. For example, departments like UIT and the Registrar's Office receives thousands of emails, many with the same questions. Training a YU-AURA assistant unique to those departments with common answers to frequent inquiries can remove a time-consuming task for employees.
While these are common use cases, they aren’t the only ones possible – now and especially in the future. When YU-AURA was created, cost-effectiveness was kept in mind, which led to building it in-house using open-source technology. In addition to reducing costs, an additional benefit to an in-house AI is that it allows the University to customize and expand the platform as needed. With the help of community use and feedback, the UIT team can continue to innovate and iterate YU-AURA, and evolve it to meet the needs and requests of the York community.
"We are very proud because we can make this our own. We can customize it the way we want," says Kalive. "We can go into meetings and conversations and listen to people and say: ‘We can do that.’”
Kalive says since it's launch last fall, York community members have embraced YU-AURA – but there are still many opportunities.
“The big thing that’s come out of this project is people are now rethinking what their pain points are,” he says. “They are really thinking about their processes and how they can be optimized or automated. That’s really exciting to see. This is innovation is happening across the organization.”
YU-AURA has also been embraced beyond York. Other Canadian universities have expressed interest in adopting the platform, recognizing the value of an open-source, collaborative AI solution tailored for higher education.
“We’re proud of the fact that we’re setting the tone for the sector,” says Kalive.
The interest from other post-secondary institutions is a major reason why York University plans to open-source YU-AURA, allowing institutions across Canada to implement and contribute to its development. Given the financial constraints faced by many post-secondary institutions, this collaborative approach ensures that the benefits of AI can be shared without exorbitant costs.
For all of YU-AURA’s success so far – which includes winning the 2024 CIO Awards Canada – Kalive understands that AI adoption can still be meet with concern or skepticism. In addition to assuring the community that all data uploaded to the platform remains safely at York, he reiterates the benefits the York community members will see as their productivity is improved, allowing them to focus on more meaningful and complex work.
At the same time, those who adopt YU-AURA play a critical role in helping the success of the AI, becoming leaders in a technology that can change the way we work for the better.
“We’re a university. We have to innovate,” says Kalive. “The best and brightest minds are here and it’s important for everything to touch this technology, because it’s not going away.”