From awareness to action: How to ELEVATE Student AI Literacy through a Business School living lab.

When students at Ulster University were asked how confident they felt using AI, many admitted they were unsure where to start and even less certain about what was “allowed.” After a workshop, those same students had almost doubled their confidence in applying AI tools ethically and effectively. That transformation was the aim of ELEVATE (Empowering Learning and Efficacy via AI Through Education), a Business School initiative designed to build practical, ethical AI literacy for students, staff and industry partners. Drawing on a “Living Lab” approach (Bergvall-Kåreborn et al., 2009), ELEVATE created an open, hands-on space where learners could experiment, reflect and apply AI in varying contexts (Purcell et al., 2019). Our motivation came from earlier successes with the MarTech Laboratory (Bustard etal., 2023), where authentic challenges proved that students learn best when they engage creatively, test ideas and see the real-world impact from their work (Tercanli & Jongbloed, 2022).