UC Irvine School of Education Establishes National AI Writing Center

The School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, has received a $10 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to establish a national center. Named the National Center for Writing Research to Improve Teaching Effectiveness with Generative AI, or the WRITE AI Center, this award was the sole grant made through the IES’s national competition for a research and development center focused on using generative artificial intelligence to improve instruction in postsecondary education.

As colleges and universities nationwide assess how generative AI is reshaping teaching and learning, the WRITE AI Center will lead a national initiative. Its primary goal is to address how AI can enhance student learning while ensuring students continue to develop essential writing, critical thinking, and communication skills.

Distinguished Professor of education Mark Warschauer will lead the WRITE AI Center as its principal investigator and director. The center aims to empower researchers, educators, community colleges, higher education organizations, and policymakers from across the country to develop and evaluate evidence-based approaches for integrating AI into postsecondary writing instruction. Over the next five years, the center will also create practical resources, conduct research, and provide guidance to help colleges make informed decisions about AI adoption to strengthen learning.

Professor Warschauer stated that the goal is to help educators use AI to expand access to excellent writing instruction through more personalized support while ensuring students continue to think critically, communicate effectively, and engage with AI responsibly. Dean Julie Washington of the School of Education added that leading this national center reflects the school's commitment to addressing a significant question facing higher education today, emphasizing the generation of evidence for thoughtful, informed decisions that prioritize student learning.

The center builds on the School of Education’s established leadership in research and innovation, along with its faculty expertise in artificial intelligence. The WRITE AI Center will focus on three primary areas.

One key area involves the development and study of PapyrusAI, a platform designed specifically for education, unlike general-purpose AI chatbots. This platform guides students through planning, revising, and strengthening their work, rather than generating writing for them. It also assists instructors in providing more personalized support. Faculty will maintain oversight of the technology's use, and students will learn both how to write more effectively and how to use AI critically and responsibly.

Community colleges will play a central role in the center’s research. These institutions serve approximately 40 percent of the nation’s undergraduate students, including large numbers of first-generation college students, working adults, veterans, and learners from low-income backgrounds. These colleges often have limited resources to provide individualized writing instruction. The center will work alongside faculty and students to explore how AI can expand access to timely, personalized feedback, complementing the role of instructors without replacing them.

Tamara Tate, co-principal investigator of the WRITE AI Center, noted that "students need more than access to powerful technology." She added that the center will collaborate with community college faculty and students to develop approaches that support their goals, reflect current classroom realities, and keep human agency at the core of writing.

The WRITE AI Center brings together a national partnership that includes MDRC, the California Community Colleges’ Digital Center for Innovation, Transformation and Equity, three California community colleges, the Virginia Community College System, and Houston City College. This collaboration will combine expertise in writing instruction, educational technology, higher education policy, program evaluation, and community college teaching to help shape the future of AI-supported learning nationwide.

Professor Warschauer emphasized that by uniting researchers, faculty, students, institutional leaders, and technology developers, the center can establish evidence-based approaches. These approaches aim to harness AI to support deeper learning and broader educational opportunity, ensuring it enhances intellectual development rather than becoming a substitute for students’ own thinking.

The WRITE AI Center will begin its five-year program of work on Sept. 1. It is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant number R305C260035.