ARCH: Adaptive Resource & Communication Hub (From Communication to Student Success & Administrative Decision-Making)

Team name: Syndicates

Use of AI tools :

We used:

ChatGPT by OpenAI

The AI tool was used for:

Structuring and refining ideas

Improving clarity and readability

Reframing the proposal in a more accessible and professional way

Organizing the proposal into coherent sections

Supporting the drafting and refinement of the final contribution

The tool was used as a support for organization and reflection rather than as a replacement for our own analysis, reasoning, or decision-making.

External feedback & contributions :

Ella Faouzi – Peer Feedback & Ethical Reflection

Raised important questions regarding how the system distinguishes between self-reliant students and genuinely disengaged students. Also encouraged reflection on how the platform could be perceived as supportive rather than intrusive or surveillance-oriented.

Ndeye Sophie Seck – Ethics, Autonomy & Emotional Design Feedback

Contributed reflections on student autonomy, privacy, trust, emotional impact, and the importance of designing supportive AI communication systems. Suggested ethical charters, trust-based governance, and co-designed messaging with students and stakeholders.

Noel Junior Yando Fotso – Governance & Structural Perspective

Emphasized that fragmented communication may also require institutional and organizational solutions beyond technology. Encouraged reflection on communication policies, responsible innovation, and structural governance.

Hans Zúñiga – Educational Impact Feedback

Highlighted the relevance of improving fragmented communication in higher education and stressed the importance of preserving human judgment and data privacy.

Nicolas Lepotier – Implementation & Accessibility Feedback

Raised concerns regarding technical feasibility, legal differences across countries, and inclusivity challenges for students without stable internet access, encouraging hybrid communication approaches.

Johanna F – Ethical & GDPR-Oriented Feedback

Provided detailed critique on behavioral profiling, GDPR Article 22 concerns, EU AI Act implications, surveillance perception risks, and the importance of transparency, opt-out mechanisms, and contestability. This feedback significantly influenced the redesign toward a more human-centered approach.

Caroline Beslin – Keynote Session on Project Development

The keynote on the four dimensions of successful projects (social, intellectual, material, and emotional) helped us evaluate our proposal from ethical, governance, emotional, and implementation perspectives. It also strengthened our SWOT analysis and human-centered framing.

Initial contribution: AI-Powered Institutional Intelligence Hub: From Communication to Student Success & Administrative Decision-Making”

Final contribution:

ARCH: Adaptive Resource & Communication Hub

(From Communication to Student Success & Administrative Decision-Making)

Our final contribution proposes ARCH (Adaptive Resource & Communication Hub), a centralized and scalable communication ecosystem designed to address fragmented communication in higher education institutions. Students today receive academic information through multiple disconnected channels such as emails, messaging platforms, informal groups, institutional portals, and learning management systems. This fragmentation often leads to missed announcements, confusion regarding deadlines, communication overload, disengagement, and increased administrative workload for faculty and institutions.

Unlike conventional systems, ARCH does not only notify users but also identifies communication gaps and provides timely, supportive interventions to ensure students remain informed and engaged while reducing administrative workload.

Rather than focusing on AI as a tutoring or automated teaching tool, our proposal explores how AI can improve institutional communication systems themselves. ARCH aims to transform communication from passive information sharing into an intelligent, proactive, and student-centered support ecosystem while preserving human interaction and institutional responsibility.

1. Intelligent Communication Management

The platform would automatically organize users into relevant academic groups (departmental, course-based, or project-based) while maintaining clear communication hierarchies. It would feature a dual messaging structure:

Important Information Section: Includes deadlines, exam notices, official announcements, and urgent updates prioritized using AI for visibility.

General Discussion Section: Includes collaboration, discussions, and informal academic communication.

Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), the system would identify and highlight high-priority content, reducing confusion and information overload.

2. Personalized Information

Not every student requires every message. The system would deliver updates based on each student’s course, department, and institutional role, reducing unnecessary notifications and improving relevance.

3. Academic Risk Detection & Supportive Intervention

A key innovation of ARCH is an AI-driven Academic Risk Detection and Support System. Rather than relying only on missed notifications, the system analyzes broader engagement patterns such as repeated missed messages, reduced interaction, lack of response, and ignored deadlines over time, supported by co-designed messaging frameworks.

To respect student autonomy, interventions would occur progressively:

First, supportive reminders, nudges, and engagement reports are shared directly with the student.

If disengagement persists, mentors or faculty may be informed to provide human support.

Human judgment remains central in all sensitive decisions.

This approach is intended as assistance, not surveillance.

4. 24/7 AI Virtual Assistant

The platform would include an AI assistant capable of handling routine queries related to schedules, deadlines, procedures, and frequently asked questions. This would reduce repetitive administrative workload while ensuring immediate support for students.

5. Analytics & Decision Support

Administrators would have access to dashboards displaying communication efficiency, engagement trends, unanswered queries, and aggregated indicators. These insights would support informed institutional decision-making while maintaining human oversight.

Implementation

The system can be implemented in phases:

Communication centralization and message prioritization

AI virtual assistant integration

Predictive risk detection and supportive intervention tools

Advanced analytics dashboards

Implementation requires secure institutional infrastructure, responsible data governance, privacy safeguards, and alignment with ethical AI standards.

Conclusion

ARCH reimagines institutional communication as a proactive, adaptive, and human-centered ecosystem where AI supports students, educators, and administrators without replacing human judgment. By combining personalization, early support mechanisms, and responsible AI design, ARCH aims to improve student success while fostering a more inclusive, transparent, and responsive higher education environment.

We believe in continuous improvement and in challenging stagnation within institutional communication systems. As communication infrastructures in higher education have remained largely unchanged for a long period, ARCH seeks not only to enhance but to meaningfully modernize them through responsible innovation.

Our intention is not to disrupt for the sake of disruption, but to improve systems that have remained static for too long. We believe meaningful progress comes from balancing innovation with responsibility, ensuring that technology strengthens rather than replaces human connection and institutional trust.

“This solution transforms institutional communication from passive information sharing into an intelligent, proactive system that supports student success and informed decision-making.”

For a detailed and easy-to-understand explanation, please refer to this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nDK4U4Q70uvr1eaBUyKNEdRhpdkCT6Ey8_Z_olfq1s4/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.65m9u91thdwx

Reflection on the process (important)

Phase 2 significantly transformed and strengthened our contribution.

Initially, our proposal focused primarily on communication centralization and AI-supported intervention mechanisms. However, through discussions with peers, critical comments, and ethics-focused keynote sessions, we recognized the importance of balancing proactive AI systems with student autonomy, transparency, privacy, and responsible governance.

One of the most influential moments in the process came from critical feedback regarding behavioral profiling, surveillance perception, GDPR-related concerns, and the risks of relying too heavily on automated engagement analysis. These critiques encouraged us to rethink several aspects of the proposal and move away from a purely system-oriented perspective toward a more human-centered and trust-based approach.

As a result, we introduced stronger ethical safeguards including:

optional engagement dashboards

greater transparency mechanisms allowing students to view and manage their own data

progressive and supportive intervention models

clearer emphasis on human oversight

stronger focus on student autonomy and human-centered implementation

opt-out possibilities wherever institutionally feasible

Discussions around inclusivity and accessibility also encouraged us to consider students facing internet or device limitations and to integrate hybrid communication alternatives such as SMS-based alerts and offline institutional support mechanisms.

The AI ethics keynote sessions further strengthened our understanding of governance, institutional responsibility, and the emotional and social dimensions of AI systems in education. These discussions helped us realize that communication challenges are not solved by technology alone and that institutional policies, trust, and human-centered implementation are equally important.

Video pitch

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bPL4GNnlw4CyK-5or7QbYJZ2TIgR23AY/view