Postgraduate Course: AI, Imagination and Creativity (CMSE11703)
Course Outline
| School | Business School |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 10 |
ECTS Credits | 5 |
| Summary | This course is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the emerging relationships between AI, imagination, and creativity, with a focus on examining their implications in an organisational context and approaches that organisations can take to manage these implications. The course is divided into four parts: Introducing and understanding imagination and creativity in organisations; AI as support, augmentation and substitution of human imagination and creativity; Imagination and AI; Creativity and AI. By taking this course, students will gain a deep understanding of imagination and creativity in organisational contexts and how AI has the potential to support, augment or substitute human imagination and creativity. Moreover, they will learn advanced approaches and AI tools for fostering individual and collective imagination and creativity in organisations. |
| Course description |
AI has started to impact work and organisations by either automating or augmenting tasks historically done by humans. The current focus is on the role AI could play in decision-making across several organisational processes, including innovation. Less attention is given on how AI could support, augment and even substitute human imagination and creativity, and the potential of AI to exhibit new forms of imagination and creativity.
Overall, in this course we explore key questions, including: What is imagination? What is creativity? How are imagination and creativity related? Does AI expand or endanger human imagination and creativity? Does AI even embody its own artificial form of imagination and creativity?
The course is divided into four parts:
Part 1: Introducing and understanding imagination and creativity in organisations. This section will discuss how imagination and creativity are often confused, and although related they are different, and both connected to the production of novelty hence to innovation. Imagination can be viewed as the engine of creativity and innovation. We will explore how imagination and creativity can be defined and understood in organisational contexts.
Part 2: AI as support, augmentation and substitution of human imagination and creativity. In this section we will examine emerging approaches for using AI to support and augment human imagination and creativity, and the potential of AI to exhibit creativity and imagination. Moreover, we will discuss the potential substitution of human imagination and creativity by AI and how we might need to rethink and redefine basic human capacities like imagination and creativity.
Part 3: Imagination and AI. This section will explore some advanced approaches to imagination and the role of AI, including AI tools to support and augment individual and collective imagination.
Part 4: Creativity and AI. This section will explore some advanced approaches to creativity and the role of AI, including AI tools to support and augment individual and collective creativity.
By taking this course, you will gain the skills and knowledge to understand the differences and the relationships between imagination and creativity, to examine the emergent role of AI in human imagination and creativity, to use advanced approaches and AI tools to support individual and collective imagination and creativity. By the end of the course, you will have developed a deep understanding of the implications of AI for imagination and creativity in organisations.
Outline content:
Part 1. Introducing and conceptualising imagination and creativity as distinctive but related capacities, at the individual and collective levels, and unpacking their relationship with innovation in organisational contexts.
Part 2: AI as support, augmentation and substitution of human imagination and creativity. Different approaches to development and management of AI for imagination and creativity across different organisational contexts.
Part 3: Imagination and AI. Approaches to imagination and AI tools to support individual and collective imagination.
Part 4: Creativity and AI. Approaches to creativity and AI tools to support individual and collective creativity.
Student learning experience:
The course will be delivered through a mix of lectures and workshops complemented by independent reading, primary research, lectures and exposure to practice through guest speakers. Students will be working both independently and in groups during the workshop on activities based on multiple modes of learning.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | This course is available to MSc AI for Business and MSc Entrepreneurship & Innovation students only. |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Not available to visiting students (SS1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Block 4 (Sem 2) |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
100
(
Lecture Hours 10,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 5,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
83 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
100% Project report (Individual) - 2,000 words - Assesses all course Learning Outcomes |
| Feedback |
Formative: Feedback will be provided throughout the course.
Summative: Feedback will be provided on assessment within agreed deadlines. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of the specialised theories, concepts and methods associated with imagination and creativity in organisations.
- Examine and critically assess the implications of using AI for imagination and creativity in different organisational contexts.
- Synthetise, communicate and present issues related to AI, imagination and creativity that enhance understanding and engagement of academic and professional audiences.
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Reading List
Core Text:
Kind A. (2022). Imagination and Creative Thinking. Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108973335 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Cognitive Skills
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Be self-motivated; curious; show initiative; set, achieve and surpass goals; as well as demonstrating adaptability, capable of handling complexity and ambiguity, with a willingness to learn; as well as being able to demonstrate the use digital and other tools to carry out tasks effectively, productively, and with attention to quality.
Understand how to manage and sustain successful individual and group relationships in order to achieve positive and responsible outcomes, in a range of virtual and face-to-face environments.
Communication, ICT, and Numeracy Skills
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Convey meaning and message through a wide range of communication tools, including digital technology and social media; to understand how to use these tools to communicate in ways that sustain positive and responsible relationships.
Critically evaluate and present digital and other sources, research methods, data and information; discern their limitations, accuracy, validity, reliability and suitability; and apply responsibly in a wide variety of organisational contexts.
Practice: Applied Knowledge, Skills and Understanding
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Apply creative, innovative, entrepreneurial, sustainable and responsible business solutions to address social, economic and environmental global challenges.
Knowledge and Understanding
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Demonstrate a thorough knowledge and understanding of contemporary organisational disciplines; comprehend the role of business within the contemporary world; and critically evaluate and synthesise primary and secondary research and sources of evidence in order to make, and present, well informed and transparent organisation-related decisions, which have a positive global impact. |
| Keywords | AI,Imagination,Creativity,Innovation |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Piera Morlacchi
Tel:
Email: piera.morlacchi@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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