BOOKENDS September 2025, Volume 9, Issue 1

Khalifa University recently became the center of global dialogue on artificial intelligence by hosting the two-day AI Futures Summit: Empowering Higher Education, in partnership with Knowledge E. The event brought together national policymakers, university leaders, academic researchers, and industry specialists to explore how AI is reshaping the future of teaching, learning, and research.

The summit opened under the patronage of H.E. Dr. Mohammad Al Mualla, Undersecretary of Higher Education in the UAE, demonstrating the Emirates’ commitment to advancing innovation in education. The gathering aimed to provide universities with strategies and practical tools to integrate AI into their academic and administrative operations while maintaining the human values that define higher learning.

More than 50 international speakers shared their expertise through keynote addresses, case studies, and lively panel discussions. Governmental ministers, university presidents, and international experts, among them Sayasat Nurbek, Minister of Science and Higher Education of Kazakhstan, joined in high-level conversations about both the opportunities and challenges that AI brings to higher education. A summit highlight was the University Leadership Panel, where university presidents and senior administrators discussed how institutions can strategically adapt AI to strengthen teaching, research, and governance.

Throughout the summit, a variety of sessions focused on pressing themes such as AI-driven innovation in pedagogy; ethical and responsible AI practices; research management in an AI era; and the growing impact of AI on healthcare and creative industries. Interactive workshops gave faculty and administrators a chance to turn broad concepts into actionable plans for their campuses.

Key messages from the summit emphasized the importance of strong institutional planning, ethical oversight, and collaboration across sectors. Speakers largely agreed that while AI can enhance efficiency and open new frontiers for discovery, at the same time universities must safeguard transparency, accountability, and human creativity.

By hosting the AI Futures Summit, Khalifa University not only showcased its leadership in emerging technologies but also reinforced Abu Dhabi’s vision of becoming a regional hub for educational innovation. The event offered a timely roadmap for universities worldwide, demonstrating how AI can be thoughtfully embraced to enrich academic excellence and prepare students for the future.

-by Muna Alblooshi

Opinion

Ask any student to describe their role in university life, and many will say scoring well on exams. Producing correct answers reliably is no accident; it requires hours of study and practice. But what about the questions themselves? Is higher education only about handing down questions so students can provide answers? If so, that would be a shallow process.

The ability to ask genuine, insightful questions is central to higher-order thinking. Not all questions of equal value: a good one sparks new ideas, while a weak one can stop a discussion cold. Even for students focused on grades, sharper questions matter - they often lead to better answers.

Improvement begins with intention. President John F. Kennedy once said, “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” Asking the right question at the right time is an accomplishment in itself. It requires foresight, tact, and practice. The journey is gradual, but worthwhile.

Yet this is made more difficult by the cultural moment in which we find ourselves. Attention spans have grown shorter, and discourse in general seems to be on the decline. In such an environment, the thoughtful question is often drowned out by quick takes, sound bites, or the lure of instant gratification. Precisely for this reason, cultivating the art of the question has never been more necessary—it serves as an antidote to distraction and a path back to meaningful dialogue.

Students should not be discouraged if their first questions fall flat. Poor attempts still teach us how quickly weak questions stall conversation. Consider the repetitive questions often asked of coaches in post-game interviews: uninspired, predictable, and quickly dismissed. How sports journalists at large have yet to figure this out is beyond understanding. By contrast, when a question provokes genuine engagement, that is a sign you’re on the right track.

The skillful questioner often sorts silently, discarding weaker thoughts until a worthwhile one emerges. When voiced, it compels others to pause and reflect. A strong question interrupts knee-jerk replies and invites dialogue of greater value. Like a six-shooter pistol, questions must be fired off with care and precise aim—each one matters.

Listening is equally important. Not to be confused with hearing, active listening followed up with a perceptive question quickly reveals the difference. A thoughtful question produces its namesake: it causes more thought. In classrooms, combining sharp listening with thoughtful questioning raises the level of discussion for everyone.

The benefits extend beyond academics. Good questions enrich relationships and create more balanced, engaged students. And when students thrive, so do instructors, who bring greater energy to their teaching.

Crafting intelligent questions, then, is not a side skill but a cornerstone of education. It sharpens thinking, deepens dialogue, and strengthens community. So perhaps it is worth taking a moment to reflect: if higher education is not the vanguard of critical questions, then where is it?

Clinical information is a unique type of information found in the KU Library. It contrasts with what you will find in textbooks and research journals, and has unique aspects that reflect its usage.

Medical information, especially as it applies to patient care, is built around evidence rather than straight facts. Clinical information and the resources it is found in are built upon different levels of evidence, from single case studies up, through randomized control trials (a “gold standard” or research), up to systematic reviews and meta-analyses. With these higher levels of evidence, one can be more confident in the quality of actionable information.

Clinical information is what can be taken from these higher levels of evidence and then used in patient care. Its form reflects its usage needs: authoritative, concise, and regularly reviewed and updated. Resources like UpToDate provide users, not with original research studies, but with current evidence that is regularly reviewed by experts. These resources provide details about when research was reviewed, when the clinical information was updated, and provide lists of research articles that the information was based on (and which you can refer to for more information).

Caregivers can quickly use this information and be confident that it is based on the best currently-available evidence in producing strong results for patients. Clinical information is often also rewritten in easier-to-understand handouts that can be provided to patients to better understand their own care. Websites like MedlinePlus also provide this information for regular people with overviews of topics and related information for improving health outcomes.

Clinical information can also help students in that it is synthesized and current–and unlike Wikipedia it is rigorously reviewed and has its recommendations often given a score to reflect the strength of the evidence. For researchers, too, the ample citations can help guide researchers to quality evidence for new topics.

This type of information reflects the challenges of research in the health sciences: information is rarely black and white. Clinical information is an excellent guide to providing the best care in a world of constantly evolving data and research. If you have questions about clinical information and the clinical resources offered by the KU Library, please reach out to your medical librarian at jason.fetty@ku.ac.ae.

As we have noted before, the university supplies a proxy server that allows our users to access all the university’s electronic resources from anywhere in the world, by making it appear to the vendor’s server that the KU user is on campus. You can read more details about that here: https://library.ku.ac.ae/bookends/vol7iss2#s-lg-box-wrapper-37662615.

But sometimes users try to access a resource unsuccessfully, and one of the major causes of that is when the site is accessed directly, accidentally bypassing the proxy server. One can tell if the proxy server is being used by looking at the URL of the site. When sites are accessed via the proxy server, the URL will contain the string “khalifa.idm.oclc.org”; so if that is missing from the URL, you know that the proxy server is not involved. So, for example, if one were accessing ACS and the URL begins with https://pubs.acs.org/, then the proxy server is not being used.

To help out with these issues, we have created two helpful tools, both of which are available at https://library.ku.ac.ae/ezproxy. The first one will take an URL and create a version that will go through the proxy server. For example, if you try to access this URL directly, the article will not be available to you. But if you paste the URL into the link creator, it will give you a URL that will allow you to access the full-text of the article.

The second tool is slightly more advanced and requires some set up. But once completed, it will allow you to access any page directly, without leaving the page. It does this by creating a bookmarklet, which uses JavaScript to redirect the browser to the proxy server for any page. There are detailed instructions on that page for both Chrome and Edge browsers. If you run into any issues setting this tool up, please contact us at libse@ku.ac.ae for more support and information.

Seveneves is an imaginative science fiction novel that starts with a shocking astronomical event: Earth’s Moon suddenly breaks into seven large pieces. At first, people are curious, but soon scientists find out that the pieces will crash into each other, and then the Earth. Within two years, falling rocks will destroy all life on the Earth’s surface. Everyone must quickly find a way to survive.

Scientists, astronauts, and leaders around the world work together on a bold plan. They will build a giant group of space stations where a small number of people can live until the Earth becomes habitable once again in the far future. 

The first part of the book explains how they build these stations, launch rockets, and solve problems in space. The author gives a lot of real science, which makes the story feel possible, though it can be a bit detailed at times.

The story is also about people and how they react to crisis. We meet brave astronauts like Dinah and Ivy, a smart scientist named Doc Dubois, and leaders who do not always agree. They must learn to trust each other even when they are scared and under pressure, if the human race is to continue.

Later, the book jumps thousands of years into the future. The children of the survivors have built a new life in space. They have changed and adapted in surprising ways. We see how humans can grow and survive even when the world we know is gone.

The book asks big questions: Who should be saved? What does it mean to be human if Earth is lost? Though long and full of details, the story is exciting and full of hope.

Seveneves is about human courage and our ability to start over. It is a good choice for anyone who likes space adventures and stories about the future of humanity.

There is a hotel in New York City that caters specifically to book lovers! The Library Hotel on Madison Avenue has 10 floors of rooms themed with one of the ten major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification® system These include Social Sciences, Foreign Languages, Math & Science, Technology, The Arts, Literature, History, General Knowledge, Philosophy and Religion.

The hotel also has a collection of 6,000 books in their reading room. It’s open 24 hours and has a free continental breakfast for you to enjoy while reading your favorite title. If you plan on visiting NYC, the Library Hotel is located in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan near the Chrysler Building. The hotel is on the same street as the main New York Public Library and is away from the hustle and bustle of Times Square. https://www.libraryhotel.com/

Send us your suggestions and feedback by e-mail at libse@ku.ac.ae.