Question reference: S6W-18338
- Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 25 May 2023
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Current status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 9 June 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how it is measuring the impact of the Scottish AI Playbook.
Answer
The Scottish AI Playbook is a “one stop shop” for anyone in Scotland embarking on a journey involving AI whether it’s learning, using, developing, deploying or just exploring. It is a shared and living asset, embodying Scotland’s AI Strategy ethos of openness, transparency and collaboration. With this in mind, the Scottish Government has focused on the development of meaningful partnerships within the Playbook to support and demonstrate wider impact.
To date, the Playbook has established partnerships with CyberScotland, Fintech Scotland, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Jisc National Centre for AI in Tertiary Education and Scotland’s Futures Forum. A further five partnerships are currently in the development phase.
Further collaborative opportunities are in development, namely through the creation of Playbook hubs. The first of these hubs currently in development is focused on Data and AI in the Healthcare space. As part of the development of this hub, a quantitative approach to measuring impact will be initiated, through namely through Google Analytics integration into the Scottish AI Playbook MediaWiki platform.
The Scottish Government also understands that impact can be both felt and measured qualitatively, in the feedback and experiences of Playbook users. With this in mind, the next phase of Playbook development also includes a period of user consultation and feedback in order to measure experiential impact. This will be subject to resourcing and budgetary considerations, as it is recognised that measuring impact in this way, while highly valuable and beneficial, is resource intensive.
While the impact of the Scottish AI Playbook either is or will be measured in several different ways, it is noted that an overarching approach to impact and impact measurement is currently in development by the Scottish AI Alliance. Once this impact measurement approach and associated framework is in hand, it is likely to have an effect on the way in which the impact of the Scottish AI Playbook is measured.