Unofficial CTO Recommendations: AI Courses for Berkeley Staff
Where to begin? 🤖
As Berkeley’s CTO I’ve received many questions about AI - mostly from people asking how they can level up their own knowledge to be more productive at work. For some it’s also about understanding how to use AI responsibly and for some, concern about its impact. From engineering to smart prompting to social impact, considerations on how to use AI are vast and rapidly evolving, integrated into every app and tool we’re using today– a daily explosion of new opportunities and challenges to consider.
There are abundant resources to help navigate this, at all 10 UC campuses, from departments and professors to institutes and classes, on various platforms. In IT, Berkeley People and Culture and San Diego collaborated on AI Essentials training, originally aimed at staff for the launch of BearGPT in 2024. This foundational class was created to scratch the surface, with respect for people’s workloads. But when the lightning speed of AI developments outpaces trainings- how do other institutions manage this? I’ve been asking around my peers to find out what they’re doing for AI training in and outside of higher education. Many have tapped into LinkedIn’s learning paths and courses for required company AI trainings. With Berkeley’s LinkedIn Learning subscription, there are over 1,000 classes at our fingertips in the AI literacy tracks.
While many of LinkedIn’s courses demonstrate specific tools we may not offer at Berkeley, as I’ve taken many of the classes I find it’s possible to get pretty far in the exercises by simply swapping in Berkeley’s official licensed AI tools. (Check out our Licensed Generative AI Tools page on the Berkeley AI Hub). For more information about Berkeley’s LinkedIn Learning offerings for staff, check out this page.
I thought it would be fun to share a few of my own explorations over a range of contexts and technical topics. [For this blog, I will be setting aside consideration of academic uses for AI (a topic better for UCB’s pedagogical experts and those responsible for academic standards).]Let’s learn together! For anyone wanting to explore beyond the campus AI Essentials course, I will be periodically posting about selected courses. I’m keeping my eye out for what’s available for both beginners and more advanced audiences, from a range of free and inexpensive resources (courses, books, videos) at a range of difficulty, suitable for a variety of audiences.
For reference, I will link my recommendations below as I post them:
The List
NOTES:
[Photo by human being Sonja Langford on Unsplash]