Marie Lynn Miranda UIC Chancellor | University Of Illinois At Chicago
The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has announced updates to its Box environment, introducing new features such as Box AI, Box Hubs, and Box Sign. These enhancements are designed to support teaching, research, administrative work, and collaboration across the university.
Box AI is now available to anyone with a UIC Box account and represents the first no-cost artificial intelligence tool accessible at UIC for use with most university data. The tool allows users to search, summarize, and extract insights from individual documents stored in Box. It can also generate text from prompts within Notes. However, there are exceptions regarding certain types of sensitive or high-risk data.
Box Hubs provides secure collaborative workspaces where teams can centralize files, tasks, and conversations related to projects. Within these hubs, Box AI can answer questions about groups of documents and help create content hubs powered by AI.
Box Sign offers a compliant e-signature solution for approvals and agreements as an alternative to Adobe Sign. Both Hubs and Sign are enabled for all users by default.
Access controls remain unchanged; permissions for files containing sensitive information must be reviewed before using Box AI. The university notes that “It is the individual’s responsibility to make sure permissions set for access to files with high-risk and/or sensitive data are reviewed before using Box AI.”
Box AI is offered on an opt-in basis. Users involved in research or protected health information projects that prohibit the use of AI should not enable this feature.
The university advises that “As with all AI tools, outputs should be reviewed for accuracy, bias and privacy considerations before use in instruction, assessment or external communications.”
For those seeking more information about artificial intelligence applications or best practices, LinkedIn Learning provides training resources accessible with a UIC NetID.
According to the announcement: “These additions are intended to reduce administrative friction, support instructional innovation and make it easier to find and use institutional resources.” The statement continues: “Our approach balances opportunity with caution: We are enabling tools that add value while providing training, oversight and policies needed to protect our community and data.”
Questions regarding these changes can be directed to Technology Solutions at UIC. More details on supported tools are available on the university’s updated AI Resources webpage.