Am I allowed to use AI? Is it cheating? Will my lecturer know? Am I accidentally helping to boil the oceans or fund a tech billionaire’s next rocket?
These are just some of the many, many questions around AI, and If you’ve asked yourself any of them recently, you’re not alone. AI has moved very quickly from “What even is this?” to “It’s everywhere and I’m not sure how I feel about it.” It can get pretty confusing.
That’s exactly why we’ve created our new AI Literacy course.
Rather than telling you what to do, the course focuses on helping you decide what’s right for you. Because using AI isn’t just a technical question, it’s an ethical one too.
As you move through the course, you’ll explore questions like:
What actually is AI?
Am I still doing my own thinking?
Can I trust this output?
What am I sharing, and where is it going?
We look at AI as a study partner, not a shortcut. It might be a tool that can help you plan, explain, or get unstuck, but it’s not there to replace your learning. Along the way, we connect AI to things that you will be developing at university, and which we hope will serve you well in the future: critical thinking, information literacy, and ethical awareness.
You’ll also explore what’s really happening when you use these tools, including data privacy, referencing pitfalls, accessibility, environmental impact, and how well (or badly) they handle the Welsh language.
Importantly, the course also makes space for a perfectly valid position: What if I don’t want to use AI at all?
We hope that the course will give you the confidence to make an informed choice, and not just follow the crowd.
AI isn’t going away. It’s already built into the tools you use every day, from search and email to library resources and learning platforms. This course isn’t about chasing the latest trend. It’s about helping you navigate a world where AI is already part of the landscape, and offering practical ways to think clearly, act responsibly, and stay in control.
The course is available to all students and staff via Blackboard Organisations and there is also a link here.
Today (21st May) is Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Within Student Journey, we have a specialised Accessibility and Wellbeing Team who work with students throughout the year. The Team includes over 50 non-medical helper staff who provide 1:1 mentoring or study skills support for students with a disability or learning difference.
Last year they supported over 800 of our students – the number of students they support has increased by 34% in the last five years.
Here’s what our students have been saying about the team this year:
…incredibly invaluable, allowing me to… remain in university through the several challenges that have occurred during my course.
…really appreciate …[having]…continued support throughout our entire degree from the same people (as opposed to them changing each year). I am autistic and that makes a real difference for me.
[The support worker] has single handily been the most important person in my university experience… without the services I would have less routine and interest from others which have been the two most vital components in my success in university.
We think that this student sums up the service perfectly: “Amazing…Absolutely brilliant…Fantastic…Phenomenal…Invaluable…Top tier”
But it’s not only these staff who are making sure that what we do is as accessible as possible. Here are some of the things that our other teams do.
Blackboard Content
Blackboard Ally is available for all students and staff at the university. This year 59,541 documents have been downloaded in an alternative format by 3,894 users. The most common format is Tagged PDF.
Staff have made 3,417 fixes to content – that’s 3,417 changes that make teaching materials more accessible to use.
The average Ally course score for 2025-26 courses in Blackboard is 72%.
In November 2025, AU entered the Blackboard Fix Your Content Day and were placed 3rd in the UK for the number of fixes to Blackboard content made.
Books and journal articles
All the book chapter and journal article scans that our digitisation service for reading lists are in an accessible format. They use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scanning, which means that uploaded scans of book chapters and journal articles in reading lists are fully machine-readable, searchable, and accessible content. As well as complying with legislation, these scans are accessible for all learners. OCR scanned documents are compatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers, as well as having text navigation facilities.
As well as scanning items for reading lists, the team can also create accessible copies for books for students who have declared a disability to the university. We have a licence which allows us to make or find accessible copies of books if a suitable version is not available for us to purchase. If a text is not covered by the licence but we own an original copy, we may still produce an accessible copy for personal study or research.
This service is free of charge to eligible students and can be accessed by emailing digitisation@aber.ac.uk
Sensory items for wellbeing sessions
Staff in our Wellbeing Service introduced boxes of sensory items that can be offered to students in Wellbeing sessions to help them manage need for self-stimulation (stimming). Here’s an example of the items available:
Using AI
Our new AI prompt library which is available to everyone include information about using AI for users with accessibility requirements. You can see some examples of this in some samples from the prompt library
Plain Language Rewriting
“Rewrite the following text in plain, easy to understand language while keeping the original meaning. Break complex sentences into shorter steps and remove unnecessary jargon. Highlight any terms that may still require explanation.”
Neurodiversity Friendly Step by Step Guide
Finding your way around
AccessAble is a brilliant resource that helps to make planning for and navigation of our Campus here at Aberystwyth that bit easier. It provides people with information about things like accessible parking space, ramp access, where hearing loops are and where they can find accessible toilets. This can be really reassuring for people as they plan to attend somewhere that is new and/or unfamiliar.
Our guidance is split into the following sections:
Advice for prompt design with Generative AI
Prompt Library for Students and Subject Librarians
Prompt Library for Staff
Prompt Library for Researchers
If you use a prompt in your studies or work that you would like to share, please contact us on librarians@aber.ac.uk. We’d love to include it in our AI Prompt Library.
AI is everywhere right now. It writes summaries, explains theories, fixes grammar, and recommends playlists. But here’s the thing nobody says out loud: you’re allowed not to use it.
Whether you feel anxious, unsure, or just plain uninterested, opting out of AI is a perfectly valid choice, and one that deserves just as much support as using it.
AI freaks me out a bit…
You’re not alone. For many students, the hesitation comes from not fully trusting what AI will do, sometimes it seems helpful, sometimes it feels confusing. That uncertainty is enough to make anyone pause, especially when you want your work to feel genuinely your own.
Deciding not to use AI doesn’t mean you’re out of touch. It shows you’re thoughtful about how you work and what supports your learning best.
Aren’t there significant ethical concerns around AI?
Yes, and this is exactly what’s so great about our Aber students. So many of them are thinking beyond the tools themselves and considering the bigger picture. They’re raising issues like:
Climate impact: AI isn’t magic; it runs on energy. A lot of it.
Human cost: Some AI systems rely on low‑paid workers in the Global South who label data or filter harmful content.
Tech giants: Using certain tools can feel like indirectly funding companies that don’t always align with your values.
Caring about these issues is not being “dramatic.” It’s being a thoughtful and engaged citizen of the world.
What is happening to my data?
Some students worry about what happens to the things they type into AI tools. Who sees it? Where is it stored? Can it be used to train future models? If that uncertainty makes you uncomfortable, choosing not to use AI, or using it only for low‑stakes tasks, is absolutely valid.
Is AI Undermining my Confidence?
Whilst AI can sound like a super‑supportive friend, agreeing with everything you say and telling you how brilliant your work is, that can actually be counterproductive. If everything looks “great” all of the time, it becomes harder to spot what really needs improving.
AI can be helpful, but it can also quietly chip away at your confidence if you rely on it too heavily.
Remember: there’s something empowering about putting that last full stop on an assignment you wrote yourself and coming away knowing: I researched this. I wrote this. I understand this.
It’s my choice, right?
AI shouldn’t feel compulsory. Not for essays, not for revision, not for anything. And if anyone makes you feel like you must use it, that’s a conversation worth having with your personal tutor.
In the end, it’s your learning, your values, your choice.
Whether you use AI every day, occasionally, or not at all, you deserve tools, support, and guidance that respect your autonomy.
