AI Exploration Week | AI Competency Centre
AI Exploration Week
When: Monday 6 July to Friday 10 July 2026, with sessions running between 10:00 and 16:00
Where: Various rooms across Oxford e-Research Centre and Kellogg College
Who: Open to all University staff
What: See full session details on our Calendar View agenda or the Weekly Schedule
AI Exploration Week is a brand-new five-day programme from the AI Competency Centre, taking place from 6-10 July 2026. The week is designed to help University staff build confidence, capability, and critical judgment in using AI for their work.
AI Exploration Week brings together practical sessions across AI foundations, administration, teaching and learning, and agentic workflows, with content tailored to real Oxford contexts in teaching, research, and professional services, including a four-part series on the history of AI. Rather than focusing only on tools, the programme will emphasise the human capabilities that make AI genuinely useful: asking better questions, supplying context, evaluating outputs critically, and integrating AI into workflows in ways that protect quality.
Participants can choose sessions that match their role and interests, from introductory guidance on responsible AI use to deeper sessions on LLM development, AI agents, and assessment in AI-mediated educational settings. Across the week, sessions will be grounded in practical application, responsible use, and transferable methods that attendees can apply immediately in their day-to-day work.
Registration
Please register for each individual session you wish to attend, as registration is session-specific, either via the Calendar View or the Weekly Schedule below. Most sessions are based at Kellogg College, but some sessions are held at the Oxford e-Research Centre, so please check each listing carefully for location details. Venue access information is available below. Be aware that some sessions run concurrently, so choose carefully.
Opening each individual session link below will bring you to a shopping basket with CoSy, Oxford’s training management system. Should you like to check out with multiple sessions, please click on multiple links, and double-check that all sessions are represented in your shopping basket before booking. Upon booking, you will receive reminder emails from CoSy including downloadable calendar invitations.
You will also have the opportunity to join optional midday sessions from 12:00 - 14:00 on select days. Details of the midday sessions, along with details of the Introduction and Concluding sessions marking the start and end of the week, will be shared closer to the event.
All sessions are free of charge; however, registering for a session is considered a commitment to attend.
Capacity is limited for each session - we are operating with waitlists in place. If you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your booking as soon as possible.
Access information
For sessions in Oxford e-Research Centre see 7 Keble Road Access Guide
For sessions in Kellogg College see Kellogg College Access Guide
No accommodation or lunch will be provided to registrants.
Agenda - Weekly schedule
Monday 6 July
Introduction & Welcome (booking details to come)
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: Bill Roscoe Theatre, Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QG
Trainer: AI Competency Centre team
Description: Opening welcome and orientation for AI Exploration Week.
The Skill Nobody Talks About: Why Knowing Yourself Beats Knowing AI
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Anders Reagan
Description: A practical session on metacognition in AI use: how awareness of your own assumptions, reasoning patterns, and knowledge gaps determines whether AI amplifies quality thinking or poor judgments.
Using AI to Create Value: Deciding Where It Works for You
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Ella Wicks
Description: Designed for Professional Services staff who want to move beyond intuitive AI use and build consistent, high-value workflows by matching AI capabilities to specific points of friction in their work.
Tuesday 7 July
What You Don’t Know You Don’t Know: AI as Your Blind-Spot Detector
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Anders Reagan
Description: Learn to use ChatGPT for strategic reflection, including techniques to surface blind spots, challenge assumptions, and uncover hidden opportunities through structured prompting and A/B reasoning approaches.
Part 1: AI as Reasoning and Computing: History of a Joint Idea
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Dominik Lukes
Description: A historically grounded introduction to AI’s development, from symbolic methods to deep learning, explaining how past paradigms shape present-day systems.
AI is Changing Everything — Except These 10 Things
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Anders Reagan
Description: A strategic session on enduring principles of AI use, helping participants separate hype from reality and make better decisions about trust, verification, and adoption.
Part 2: Large Language Models: Development and Key Concepts
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Dominik Lukes
Description: Tracks the development of LLMs from embeddings and transformers to instruction tuning and multimodal/reasoning systems, with practical concepts for evaluating model behaviour.
Wednesday 8 July
Two Ways to Use AI: For Better or For Worse
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Anders Reagan
Description: An introduction to generative AI as a plausibility machine, contrasting “Mirror vs Oracle” usage patterns and covering Oxford-ready, responsible practice.
Part 3: Agent Architecture and Context Engineering: From Chatbots to AI Systems
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Dominik Lukes
Description: Explores the shift from chatbots to agentic systems, introducing architecture, memory, tools, planning, and context engineering for dependable AI workflows.
Skill Set for the Age of AI: Spoiler Alert, You Already Have These
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Anders Reagan
Description: A human-centred session on the capabilities that matter most in AI use: curiosity, reflection, iteration, context-setting, and critical evaluation. Participants learn practical frameworks for using AI to amplify judgment and learning rather than replace them.
Part 4: Expertise and AI: Past and Future
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Dominik Lukes
Description: Examines how AI redistributes expertise and raises the value of professional judgment, contextual understanding, and reflective practice.
Thursday 9 July
AI in the Writing Process: Rethinking Authorship and Assessment
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Kelly Webb-Davies
Description: Explores AI-mediated writing, authorship, and evaluative control, with practical implications for assessment design and academic integrity in teaching contexts.
From Zero to App Development with Generative AI
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Alok Kumar Sahu
Description: A beginner-friendly practical session on building applications with AI coding support, including prompt engineering, decomposition, and iterative development.
Beyond Detection: Navigating AI Tools and Ethical Practice in Education
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Kelly Webb-Davies
Description: Critically reviews AI detection approaches and gives educators practical, ethical responses to real student AI use in teaching and assessment.
From Prompts to Agents: Designing, Building, and Evaluating Agentic AI Workflows
Time: 14:00-16:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Alok Kumar Sahu
Description: Hands-on exploration of agentic workflow patterns (reflection, planning, tool use, orchestration), implementation options, and robust evaluation methods.
Friday 10 July
Shaping AI to Fit Your Work: Designing How Codex Supports What You Value
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: The Walter Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Ella Wicks
Description: For colleagues already using AI who want to shift from reactive use to intentional workflow design, reducing cognitive load and creating consistent support patterns.
Protecting Learning: Guiding Students to Avoid Cheating Themselves with AI
Time: 10:00-12:00
Location: 62 Meeting Room, Kellogg College, 62 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6PN
Trainer: Kelly Webb-Davies
Description: Reframes AI in education around protecting learning processes, helping educators distinguish between AI use that supports cognition and use that bypasses it.
Celebration & Conclusion (booking details to come)
Time: 14:00-17:00
Location: Bill Roscoe Theatre, Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QG
Trainer: Everyone
Description: Closing celebration for all participants in AI Exploration Week.