On the 12th and 13th of this month, Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais participated as a guest speaker at the 1st Impuls Educació Congress: Leading the School of the Future, with the presentation “Ethical Educational Leadership: Identity, Interiority, Ethics.” The conference was organized by the Institució Familiar d’Educació, an educational group with thirteen schools in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands, and was held at the International University of Catalonia and Sant Ignasi School, in Barcelona.

Some photos of the event:

Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais participated this month in the 19th Annual Conference of the Asia-Pacific Network for Moral Education (APNME), which took place at the University of Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur, from the 5th to the 7th of November. This year the theme was “Ethics and Authentic Dialogue in the AI Era”.

Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais presented a paper coauthored with Dr. Isabel Álvarez Cánovas (Autonomous University of Barcelona) with the title “Higher Education: Academic Integrity, Ethical Values and Generative Artificial Intelligence”.

Abstract

“The integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into higher education presents both unprecedented opportunities and significant ethical challenges. This paper explores the impact of AI on academic integrity and ethical values within universities, contextualizing its influence on students, faculty, and institutional practices. Drawing from contemporary debates in AI ethics, the authors highlight the anthropomorphization of AI and its implications for autonomy, moral agency, and decision-making. The paper examines how generative AI reshapes key academic practices- particularly assessment, authorship, and intellectual honesty – by introducing tools that can both support learning and facilitate dishonest behavior. Through a mixed-methods approach combining surveys, interviews, and content analysis of institutional policies, the study reveals a growing concern over the erosion of originality and critical thinking due to AI-generated content. It also underscores the lack of preparedness among stakeholders to ethically navigate these emerging technologies. The authors advocate for a comprehensive ethical framework tailored to higher education, emphasizing transparency, privacy, inclusion, and governance. Moreover, they call for the development of robust educational policies, ethics committees, and participatory mechanisms involving students and faculty. The findings suggest that, while generative AI holds transformative potential, its implementation must be guided by clear ethical standards to preserve the values underpinning academic integrity. Ultimately, the paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on how higher education can responsibly adapt to technological innovation while safeguarding its foundational principles“.

From left to right: Dr. Vishalache Balakrishnan, Professor at the University of Malaysia, Dr. Wiel Veugelers, Emeritus Professor at The University of Humanistic Studies (The Netherlands) and Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais, Professor at the University of Barcelona.

Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais was invited to participate in the 6th International Conference on Psychology of the Faculty of Higher Studies (FES in Spanish) Zaragoza, at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) from the 26th to the 28th of February, which was entitled “Innovation in Psychology: Perspectives and solutions”. She delivered a keynote speech on “psychological grounds for moral education” on the 26th and she also offered a workshop the next day with the title “Educational strategies for moral development”.

Keynote speech on the 26th of February

Workshop participants on the 27th of February

On the 20th of last month, Dr. Maria Rosa Buxarrais gave a lecture at the Creativació Foundation in Girona entitled “Solid Values ​​in Liquid Times“, on how to teach beyond a strictly academic objective. This lecture is part of the foundation’s initiative called “Teachers for tomorrow“. The aim is to create a network formed by teachers of centres of Catalonia who meet monthly, as they explain on the web, with the purpose of creating “a space of personal growth where one can share, learn and experience. Thus, we acquire academic and human (values) resources to improve our educational task.”

Dr. Buxarrais has been named ambassador of the institution.

Dr. Buxarrais with Jordi Callejón, manager for projects and services of the foundation.

On the 3rd of December, Dr. Buxarrais attended the 13th Meeting on Teaching Support Centres (ECAD) at the The Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile), where she was the keynote speaker with a talk on “The Teaching Profession at the University: Challenges of Teaching Support Centres”.

Over 140 higher education teachers attended this event, which aims at promoting innovation, quality, and continuous improvement in teaching and learning processes in higher education in Chile.