OneOklahoma Cyberinfrastructure Initiative Artificial Intelligence Consultants (OneOCII-AIC): Developing a Pipeline of AI Consultants and Workforce Training Program

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly crucial to an ever-broadening array of disciplines and applications. To address this need, the University of Oklahoma is creating a pipeline of AI consultants, both professional and student, to boost AI expertise and to enable access to AI resources for researchers who might otherwise not utilize AI. An initial cohort of ninety-one research teams from nine Oklahoma institutions are recipients of project consulting, including from three PhD-granting universities and four masters-granting universities. The outcomes of the project will ultimately support thousands of researchers nationwide - undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, staff and faculty - who need this capability. The project's objectives include establishing AI consultants who focus on enabling AI-based investigations by researchers who want to use AI but are not yet fully doing so. The AI consultants are providers of AI training statewide and nationally on adoption of AI and use of state and national AI resources. The professional AI consultants mentor student AI consultants, both to show workforce development feasibility and to maximize AI consultant value. An AI consultant workforce training program is an important outcome of the project, encouraging adoption of the approach nationwide. A combination of formative and summative evaluation is used to demonstrate the value of this project's approach. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.