A $25,000 Florida High Tech Corridor award will help expand the Bellini College鈥檚 AI Course Companion (AICC) this fall.
The AICC pilot program launched a year ago and its use has grown steadily since. During the spring semester, it was used in more than 30 courses. The AICC combines instructor-provided course materials with an interactive AI assistant embedded in Canvas. Students can ask questions, review concepts and practice exam material using instructor-approved content.
"Our goal is not to have AI teach students,鈥 said Ken Christensen, associate dean of academic affairs for the Bellini College. 鈥淥ur goal is to help students learn more effectively in a world where working with AI is becoming an essential professional skill."
The Florida High Tech Corridor award will strengthen the next phase of the project by validating and quantifying the AICC鈥檚 impact on student success outcomes such as course completion, progression and retention.
鈥淪upport from the Florida High Tech Corridor will help us move from a successful pilot to a more scalable, evidence-based solution that can benefit more students and faculty across USF and beyond,鈥 Oguzhan Topsakal, an associate professor in the Bellini College who developed the AICC program.
For students, the AICC is a multilingual, context-aware AI tutor that embeds directly within Canvas. Unlike generic AI models such as ChatGPT, the AICC draws from actual USF course materials, uploaded by USF instructors. That can include the instructor's syllabus, lecture slides and supplementary readings.
"Learning with AI will be an essential skill for tomorrow's graduates. The AI Course Companion gives students the opportunity to develop that skill within the context of their coursework and under faculty guidance," said Ken Christensen.
The award will also help document the value of the tool for institutions and instructors, support implementation beyond computing courses and prepare adoption-ready materials for broader institutional use and commercialization discussions. In addition, part of the funding will support student developers as well as cloud and AI services needed for data analysis, implementation and reporting.