BRINGING AI LITERACY TO THE PARK: A SERVICE-LEARNING CASE STUDY OF STUDENT-LED COMMUNITY OUTREACH BY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT UNDERGRADUATES IN MALAYSIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJMOE.831078Keywords:
AI Literacy, Community Outreach, Information Literacy, Library and Information Science Education, Malaysia, Service-Learning, SULAM And Synthetic MediaAbstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) literacy is increasingly treated as a public competence rather than a purely curricular one, yet research remains concentrated in formal school and university settings, and community-based AI literacy is under-studied. This paper reports a descriptive single-case study of InfoFest: AI-CON, an AI literacy outreach programme designed and delivered by 29 Diploma in Information Management students at a municipal recreation park in Sungai Petani, Kedah, Malaysia, under the national Service Learning Malaysia University for Society (SULAM) framework. The study draws principally on a post-programme participant survey (n = 37) and two stakeholder interviews, supported by programme documentation, registration records and social media analytics, combined in a convergent mixed-methods design. Four low-cost activity formats, only one of which required a networked device, addressed the four dimensions of AI literacy proposed by Ng et al. (2021) at a total delivery cost of RM375. Against 44 registered participants this equates to approximately RM8.52 per registered participant; the 37 survey respondents are a subset of those registrants. Reaction ratings were uniformly high (means of 4.78 to 4.84 on a five-point scale) but showed a pronounced ceiling effect, and therefore evidence satisfaction rather than learning. Two further findings carry more weight. Some visitors had difficulty distinguishing AI-generated images from photographs, echoing controlled perceptual studies. A vernacular, informally worded post in a place-based Facebook community group was the most effective observed recruitment channel, while institutionally styled short-form video accumulated views at a mean watch time of 5.8 seconds and a 1.67 per cent completion rate. The principal contribution of the study is evaluative: outreach reporting routinely conflates reach, engagement and learning, which are distinct and should be reported separately. The paper recommends that SULAM registration forms include a small number of AI literacy questions, so that participants' starting knowledge is recorded and learning, rather than satisfaction alone, can be demonstrated.
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