Scottish AI Playbook Goes Live!
Blog from Dawn Hunter, Project Manager of the Scottish AI Alliance.
When Scotland’s AI Strategy was launched in March 2021, it included a simple strategy action:
“2.1 Begin work on the Scottish Playbook for AI”.
Such a simple sentence truly belied the scale of the task of developing and creating the Scottish AI Playbook.
Background
Over the last year, we have been working to ensure that we developed the right solution for the Scottish AI ecosystem. We started off with some initial stakeholder engagement in the summer of 2021, where we asked people what they thought of the idea of the Scottish AI Playbook and what they thought should be in it. Then we worked on developing some user personas to work out who would use it.
We then moved on to user requirements mapping, where we commissioned a series of exercises with small group engagement to find out what specific users want.
The user groups we identified were: Researchers, Educators, Third Sector, Public Sector, Entrepreneurs/Start Ups and Business Users. This was not an exhaustive list of course but through our engagement work, we identified these groups as potentially the most prominent users of the Playbook and we will focus on them for the first iteration.
The outcome report of this exercise was delivered in early November 2021. Participants were asked various questions about the Playbook concept and what would make them use it, and what elements should be included that they needed and wanted. They were also asked about pain points on their AI journey and were presented with ideas of assets to be potentially included in the Playbook to feedback on. These assets were suggested in previous stakeholder engagements and were presented to the participants without context to gauge interest.
These workshops provided us with a fantastic insight into what these user groups need/want from the Playbook and perhaps from the wider AI support ecosystem. The summary report synthesised the rich input from the participants into potential user journeys and has given us an outline user requirements map as a foundation to proceed with the next step of the development of the Playbook.
Developing a Solution
While the extensive engagement work we carried out provided us with some great insights, it also posed some issues: how do you create a Playbook that works for everyone whilst also ensuring, as is so often the case in the rapidly changing world of AI, that it does not become obsolete on publication?
It was while we grappled with this question that we came upon the answer: in order to be truly collaborative, and in order to be a dynamic and evolving resource, we decided to set the Playbook up as a fully collaborative online platform, eliciting and encouraging input from Scotland’s AI community to allow it to grow and develop.
In this, the mission statement of the Playbook has changed, from a guide to how we do AI in Scotland, to a “one stop shop” for anyone in Scotland embarking on a journey involving AI whether it’s learning, using, developing, deploying, or just exploring.
We launched the holding page for the Scottish AI Playbook at the Scottish AI Summit in March 2022, and since then we have received so many contributions from the Scottish AI community already. From this, we were able to build the initial framework of the Scottish AI Playbook, which has now gone live!
So what now?
The Scottish AI Playbook is operational and ready for you to start collaborating! Simply request an account and once your request has been verified, you are free to submit articles to our collaborative site. All articles will be moderated by our team of volunteer moderators to ensure they are accurate, relevant and appropriate. Truly, the Scottish AI Playbook needs you, the Scottish AI community, to drive it forward, develop it and make it the amazing resource we know it can be.
Get Involved
You can find out how to get involved in this blog here, but in a nutshell, there are three key ways:
Suggest Partner Organisations: We are keen to have partner organisations on board to curate areas of the Playbook that are relevant to their sector area. Have an idea for a partner organisation? Send it over to us for review.
Create And Edit Playbook Pages: We encourage you to add and edit pages to the wiki with AI-related content and resources that will be beneficial to the Scottish AI community and the wider public.
Become A Volunteer Moderator: We are continuing to seek volunteer moderators for the Scottish AI Playbook as the Playbook grows. If you have a research, academic, technical, business or legislative background in AI we would love to hear from you. Your contribution will be vital in ensuring the ongoing accuracy, relevance and trustworthiness of the information contained in the Scottish AI Playbook.
The Scottish AI Playbook is the culmination of our first year of outreach and engagement. With the support of the Scottish AI community it will become a great resource for anyone in Scotland embarking on their AI journey. We now need you, members of the Scottish AI community, to get involved with collaborating, creating, moderating and promoting the Scottish AI Playbook to make it a useful, necessary and relevant resource for anyone embarking on their AI journey.
We will be hosting an online event on Thursday the 18th of August at 12.30pm (SIGN UP HERE) to take you through the Scottish AI Playbook and how you can get involved. Scottish AI Playbook: How You Can Get Involved will include a walkthrough of the Scottish AI Playbook, along with details on the various way in which you can get involved. We will also be answering all of your questions, so come along to this lunchtime session, find out more and get involved in developing the Scottish AI Playbook.
