Queen’s governance for the use and oversight of artificial intelligence operates within the university’s bicameral system. The Board of Trustees holds responsibility for the strategic and financial direction of the institution, while Senate holds authority over academic policy, academic standards, and matters that affect teaching, learning, research, and scholarly integrity. All AI-related structures and decisions operate within this formal governance environment, ensuring that initiatives affecting academic work are developed in alignment with Senate’s legislated responsibilities.
Overseeing how GenAI will be integrated and used at Queen’s, or how it will be constrained to eliminate or mitigate its inherent risks, will become the responsibility of Queen’s Digital Planning Committee (QDPC):
- QDPC will ensure that the deployment and use of AI systems is aligned with organisational values and goals.
- “Nexus” as a word emphasizes an integrative and cross-campus view of AI strategy where all reasoned and well-intended perspectives can be heard and considered. The Queen’s AI Nexus (Q-AIN) will bring together diverse perspectives from pedagogical, operational, legal, technical, ethical and other domains. It is the site of decisions, policies, and guidance for ensuring that AI is only used by Queen’s people in service of our community, augmenting our people’s capacity, and living our values.
- Three AI subcommittees, one for each of the AI domains (teaching and learning, research admin, and operations).
- Each subcommittee will be supported by ad hoc working groups that will investigate and make recommendations around use cases and AI technologies to be prioritized for implementation within each domain.
The graphic above outlines the governance structure for decision-making related to the use of GenAI and how it will be integrated at Queen's. The AI Nexus subcommittees on Teaching and Learning, Operations, and Research and Reseach Admin are advisory bodies for AI Nexus, which provides advice and recommendations to the Queen's Digital Planning Committee, and where academic matters are implicated, to Senate subcommittees. Queen's Senior Leadership Team executes the strategic direction set by the Board of Trustees' Finance, Assets, and Strategic Infrastructure Committee.
Queen’s Senior Leadership Team executes the strategic direction set by the Board of Trustees’ Finance, Assets and Strategic Infrastructure Committee and acts as the senior administrative body responsible for implementing university-wide digital and AI priorities. In matters that intersect with the academic mission, including the use of AI in teaching, learning, and research, the Senior Leadership Team’s work occurs in parallel with and subject to the academic policy authority of Senate.
Queen’s Digital Planning Committee is the university’s decision-making governance body responsible for crafting a digital vision for Queen’s University, for engaging in the planning activities necessary to guide the strategic direction of Queen’s digitalization efforts and institution-focused digital integration efforts, and for acting as the governance body that aims to bring constituents together to develop a shared agenda for the intake, prioritization and investment in IT opportunities that contribute to the evolving digital environment at Queen’s.
Within its existing mandate, QDPC shall make decisions that support the implementation and use of AI in teaching and learning, research administration and operational excellence. Based on the recommendations of the AI Centre of Excellence (led by a senior AI advisor to the Provost), QDPC shall include, as a minimum, in its responsibilities:
- identifying and directing the creation of policies, standards, guidelines and controls in support of responsible AI innovation;
- prioritising and monitoring the portfolio of AI initiatives/projects, assessing them against other strategic priorities for resourcing purposes; and
- mandating the AI Centre of Excellence to work on specific AI-related activities (e.g. the development of an AI risk management framework).
The Queen’s AI Nexus, to be led by the AI Special Advisor to the Provost, comprises three domain-specific AI subcommittees, each with their own area of expertise. The Nexus will:
- Stay abreast of AI trends within higher education, identifying opportunities and proposing AI initiatives that, if implemented, will advance Queen’s AI maturity level and drive the adoption of best practises;
- advance collaborations using and studying AI by bringing together individuals and teams to address the problems of the day
- identify risks and issues associated with the use of GenAI and collaborate with the risk management team to recommend necessary guardrails and mitigations;
- assist the Security Assessment Process team to conduct AI-specific assessments to ensure that AI applications (purchased or developed in-house) comply with relevant laws, regulations, and organizational policies;
- develop standards for AI architecture to be used by the Queen’s ARB, and collaborate with Queen’s Enterprise Architect to ensure alignment with enterprise architecture practises;
- provide guidance for our community members by developing guiding answers in support of each of the proposed self-assessment questions;
- develop an AI literacy program and suggests training opportunities for Queen’s employees;
- collaborate with data science teams, following Queen’s data governance practises to resolve any issues or concerns related to data sources and models; and
- facilitate communication and collaboration amongst constituents to elicit input on and address AI-related concerns.
The Nexus will provide advice and recommendations to QDPC and, where academic matters are implicated, may inform Senate committees considering academic policy development or review. This relationship ensures that AI governance benefits from specialist expertise while remaining consistent with Queen’s academic governance structures.
The structures shown and described above are explicitly related to AI governance. However, it is important to remember that AI governance will exist within the broader university governance ecosystem that includes other formal governance bodies (such as Queen’s data governance bodies, e.g. the Data Governors Council and its sub-committee; the Data Trusteeship Committee) as well as university units and frameworks that have been established to provide oversight and guidance, such as the Enterprise Risk Management Framework, Queen’s Cybersecurity Program, Internal Audit, the IT Change Advisory Board, etc.
AI governance will also operate in alignment with Queen’s academic governance system, ensuring that Senate’s authority over academic policy and standards remains central to decisions affecting teaching, learning, and research.