Five layers, each from a recognised source
No single framework covers what a course needs now. UNESCO covers AI; GreenComp, APF and FuturesComp cover futures thinking; none covers course design or the institution. Each layer below takes the strongest source for its job.
| Layer | Levels | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| AI in the coursecourse description, syllabus, assignments | Not present → Understand → Apply → Create | UNESCO AI framework for students |
| Futures in the coursecourse description, syllabus, assignments | Not present → Aware → Explore → Shape | UNCERTAIN (the nine steps), GreenComp (futures literacy rubric), APF foresight competencies, FuturesComp, Policy Horizons Canada |
| Course design in the AI erabrief or syllabus | Not aligned → Partly aligned → Aligned | Alignment check (outcome, assignment, assessment) |
| Faculty readinessfaculty self-assessment on the platform, not the catalogue | Not yet → Acquire → Deepen → Create | UNESCO AI framework for teachers |
| Institution readinessProvost's office, each semester | Not started → Partly in place → In place | Capability and results items |
The AI layer in full (UNESCO, students)
| Dimension | Understand | Apply | Create |
|---|---|---|---|
| Human-centred mindset | Human agency | Human accountability | Citizenship in the era of AI |
| Ethics of AI | Embodied ethics | Safe and responsible use | Ethics by design |
| AI techniques and applications | AI foundations | Application skills | Creating AI tools |
| AI system design | Problem scoping | Architecture design | Iteration and feedback loops |
UNCERTAIN's nine steps as course units
Each step is a unit a course can adopt, with an assignment ready to use. Steps 0 to 3 build the mindset (Aware), 4 and 5 explore (Explore), 6 to 9 shape (Shape); under each unit is its rubric level and APF competency. The book column is read from the April 2020 draft in full, where steps 8 and 9 are still headings only; the library column adds the method from a book on the owned shelf, which fills those two steps. A four-week signal log fed by the platform's daily watch: each signal, its source, what would corroborate it, and whether it is a closing window or a growing threat.
| Step | Unit | From the book | From the library | Ready assignment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Start with an open mindAware · Mindset | Explore on paper: you study a future without having to adopt it. Values first, understood before judged. | Kahneman: catch the fast, default judgment before it decides | The passport-control exercise: a traveller arrives with a spouse who is not human. Students write how the rules, the officer and their own values would respond, without having to agree with any of it. |
| 1 | Become friends with the butterflyAware · Mindset | Small changes reshape whole industries; project a small change over years before deciding. | Christensen: disruption enters from the low end, where incumbents are happy to cede | Trace one small change that reshaped the student's field (a Fosbury Flop), then project a current small change ten years forward. |
| 2 | Understand your focal pointAware · Framing | Three circles: the focal point, the micro environment it acts on, the macro environment it only reacts to. A ten-year history line of the organization's phases and crises. Driving factors scored, cross-impact, and a future-areas matrix of opportunities, threats and known unknowns. | Schwartz: start from the actual decision, not from the trends | A three-circle map and ten-year history line for a decision in the field, with the five drivers that matter most, each scored. |
| 3 | Hear the echo in systems thinkingAware · Framing | Behaviour comes from reinforcing and balancing loops; fixing one part in isolation backfires (the cats parachuted into Borneo). | Meadows: leverage points and the system traps | A systems map of the focal issue with one reinforcing and one balancing loop, and the leverage point where a small change would move most. |
| 4 | Read and listen to the signalsExplore · Scanning | Tell signal from noise by corroboration (an alarm, then smoke, then firefighters). Opportunities are windows that close; threats grow if ignored. Success is foresight times action. Weak signals, wild cards, key uncertainties, blind spots. | Heuer: keep the signals that tell competing explanations apart; Kim and Mauborgne: signals can point to an uncontested market | A four-week signal log fed by the platform's daily watch: each signal, its source, what would corroborate it, and whether it is a closing window or a growing threat. |
| 5 | Evaluate multiple futuresExplore · Futuring | Five scenarios, each with a plausible path from today: no change, optimistic, pessimistic, dramatic, transformational, plus the preferred one. Future users live inside each. Probable, plausible, possible, preferable. | Schwartz: rank forces by importance and uncertainty to pick the axes; Tetlock: check each story against the base rate | Five scenarios for the field in 2040, each with the path that leads there and a future user living in it. |
| 6 | Explore the implications and fitnessShape · Designing | Futures wheels for second- and third-order effects; a fitness check of each scenario against the organization's strengths and weaknesses; options split into what we should do and what we can do; options common to all scenarios form an emergent strategy. | Meadows: second-order effects are where interventions backfire | A futures wheel for one scenario, then a fitness table against a real organization's strengths and weaknesses, ending in should and can options. |
| 7 | Envision a future strategyShape · Visioning | Choose the preferable future; find the imperatives, the no-regret moves that hold in every scenario. | Rumelt: a strategy is a diagnosis, a guiding policy and coherent actions | Three no-regret moves for a real organization, written as diagnosis, guiding policy and actions. |
| 8 | Prioritize and implementShape · Designing | Draft headings only in the 2020 text: implementation versus innovation, prioritizing, the known-versus-unknown quadrant, a sense of urgency. | Taleb: a barbell of safe moves and small, capped bets; options before commitments | Rank the moves on a known-versus-unknown grid; put most effort in safe moves and a few small bets, and plan the first one with the people it affects. |
| 9 | Monitor and learnShape · Adapting | Draft headings only in the 2020 text: organizational agility, enterprise future fitness, scenario monitoring, trend scouting, lessons learned, and go back: it is a new day. | Schwartz: signposts that show which scenario is unfolding; Tetlock: scored forecasts and an honest post-mortem | Signposts for each scenario, three dated probability forecasts scored at term end, and a one-page lessons-learned that restarts the cycle. |
Most programmes train foresight users, who decide with foresight; a few train producers, who do the research (Policy Horizons Canada). Forecasting a number is prediction, not foresight, and scores zero on this layer.
Six places, from one unit to the whole university
1. A General Education course for every student
A one-semester course on thinking in futures, taught through the nine steps, ending in a group scenario project: future users, driving factors, a 2x2 on two key uncertainties, and the moves to make today. General Education has 54 described courses and none names foresight.
2. A futures step inside existing General Education
GEIT215 Generative AI Foundations adds step 4, a signal log fed by the platform's capability data. GEHU230 Philosophy in the Era of AI adds step 6, a futures wheel on AI and human relationships. GEHS260, on Lebanon's monetary history, closes with step 5: scenarios for the currency's next decade.
3. One futures unit in every programme
As in the six briefs: each course adopts one step that fits its field. Finance sets a forecast beside scenarios; marketing logs signals of how customers will choose; corporate law finds no-regret governance moves.
4. A scenario stress-test in every capstone
Senior projects end by testing their recommendation against three futures and naming the signposts to watch (steps 5 and 9).
5. Faculty first
Faculty readiness is scored on UNESCO's teacher framework (Acquire, Deepen, Create). The nine steps become a faculty workshop before any course changes, so teachers practise each assignment themselves.
6. The platform does the heavy lifting
The daily watch already scans AI capability, MOOCs and job demand: that is step 4 running every day. Courses draw their signals from it, and step 9 signposts are monitored on it.
Six courses today, and with their briefs
Today, from the 2025-26 catalogue description: 0 of 6 courses show any futures thinking. With the brief's added units, including one UNCERTAIN step each, 6 of 6 reach Explore.
Today| Course | Human-centred | Ethics of AI | AI techniques | AI system design | Futures | Course design | Step added |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIM655Artificial Intelligence for Finance | – | – | Apply | – | – | – | |
| MKT685Digital Marketing Strategy | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| MGT335Technology and Innovation Management | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| DRG320.1Computer and Internet Law | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| ICL585Internet Law | – | – | – | – | – | – | |
| DRG510Advanced Corporate Law | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| Course | Human-centred | Ethics of AI | AI techniques | AI system design | Futures | Course design | Step added |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIM655Artificial Intelligence for Finance | – | Apply | Apply | – | Explore | Aligned | 5 |
| MKT685Digital Marketing Strategy | – | – | – | – | Explore | Aligned | 4 |
| MGT335Technology and Innovation Management | – | – | Create | – | Explore | Aligned | 5 |
| DRG320.1Computer and Internet Law | Apply | Understand | Apply | – | Explore | Aligned | 6 |
| ICL585Internet Law | – | Understand | – | – | Explore | Aligned | 5 |
| DRG510Advanced Corporate Law | Apply | – | – | – | Explore | Partly | 7 |
General Education today: GEIT215 Generative AI Foundations reaches Apply on AI techniques and Understand on ethics; GEHU230 Philosophy in the Era of AI reaches Understand on ethics. Neither shows futures thinking. Briefs: Business and Law Course Briefs.
AI proposes, faculty decide
Proof before use: the rules were tested against 20 course texts labelled before the rules were written, including texts built to fool them (commercial agency law, business ethics without AI, financial forecasting). Running the rules over all 2,500 catalogue courses then surfaced new traps (clinical scenarios, what-if simulations, iterative maths); five were added to the test as known-bad and the rules fixed until they scored zero. Result: 20 items x 5 layers = 100 cells; exact 98/100 (98%); within one level 100/100 (100%). Known-bad texts all scored zero. The labels were set by the same team that wrote the rules, so faculty review is the real test; two misses already found are rules reading too little, not too much.
Readiness, scored each semester
Capabilities and results are scored separately, so activity is never mistaken for impact. Each item is scored not started, partly in place, or in place.
Capabilities
- Foresight training for faculty and staff, every year
- A live signals feed (the daily watch) open to every course
- Data for futures analysis kept current
- Quantitative and qualitative methods in use
- Foresight that crosses faculties, not one department
Results
- Courses at Explore or Shape, by faculty
- Programmes changed because of a signal or scenario
- Simulations or pilots run on a future trend
- Studies and theses published on futures topics
- Decisions taken earlier because a signal was caught