The AI Chatbot That Could Transform Business School Accreditation

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The AI Chatbot That Could Transform Business School Accreditation

By Paul Keegan | Bloomberg Businessweek | April 17, 2024  

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This week, at the annual meeting of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business in Atlanta (AACSB), many of the attendees—business school professors, deans and administrators—have been flocking to a booth to test-drive a chatbot developed to tackle some of the toughest issues in business education.

Developed by the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, the pilot program called ChatSDG is being pitched by Haub as a “revolutionary” tool that will let schools engage further with the outside world and become more relevant. From assessing the impact of business on society to provoking questions about the purpose of academic research, ChatSDG promises to transform business education into a “force for good,” says Haub professor David Steingard.

What ChatSDG does is fairly straightforward: Using an algorithm trained on hundreds of thousands of articles, the large language model AI program rates how well scholarly journals and individual articles align with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These SDGs range from ending poverty and hunger to combating climate change. Once the chatbot spits out its detailed report, schools can use the ratings to help satisfy the accreditation requirements of the AACSB, the leading accreditation body for MBA programs. In 2020, the organization updated its standards to compel business schools to demonstrate that they are taking societal impact seriously, according to Stephanie Bryant, AACSB’s executive vice president.

“It’s going to revolutionize the curriculum,” DiAngelo says. “It’s going to revolutionize how faculty members do research, and it’s going to revolutionize how schools provide their metrics for the accreditation process.”

Can ChatSDG really measure what it calls “impact intensity,” the effect the research is having in the real world? “I don’t see that as realistic,” says Teplitskiy. “Demonstrating impact is a very hard task that we don’t even have great training data for.”  an assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Information who specializes in finding ways to improve the efficiency and credibility of scientific research, has not tried it. But based on his understanding of how the AI tool works, Teplitskiy questions whether it can do much more than measure whether a journal or article is in alignment with sustainability goals—something he says existing technology can already do.

At the AACSB meeting in Atlanta, the Cabells ChatSDG booth has attracted a steady stream of business school leaders curious about how AI may be transforming their world.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. This week, at the annual meeting of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business in Atlanta (AACSB), many of the attendees—business school professors, deans and administrators—have been flocking to a booth to test-drive a chatbot developed to tackle some of the toughest issues in business education.
2. Developed by the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, the pilot program called ChatSDG is being pitched by Haub as a “revolutionary” tool that will let schools engage further with the outside world and become more relevant. From assessing the impact of business on society to provoking questions about the purpose of academic research, ChatSDG promises to transform business education into a “force for good,” says Haub professor David Steingard.
3. What ChatSDG does is fairly straightforward: Using an algorithm trained on hundreds of thousands of articles, the large language model AI program rates how well scholarly journals and individual articles align with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

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Topics:  Business Schools, Sustainable Development Goals, UNO, Social Impact, Research, Transformation, Journals, Articles