# FernUni LLM Experimental Infrastructure (FLEXI) -- Enabling Experimentation and Innovation in Higher Education Through Access to Open Large Language Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.13013 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.13013/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 22 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Jun 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03300/) (2020)
- [Think you have Solved Question Answering? Try ARC, the AI2 Reasoning Challenge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05457/) (2018)
- [HellaSwag: Can a Machine Really Finish Your Sentence?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.07830/) (2019)
- [TruthfulQA: Measuring How Models Mimic Human Falsehoods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07958/) (2021)
- [Jailbroken: How Does LLM Safety Training Fail?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02483/) (2023)
- [From Pretraining Data to Language Models to Downstream Tasks: Tracking the Trails of Political Biases Leading to Unfair NLP Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08283/) (2023)
- [Political Compass or Spinning Arrow? Towards More Meaningful Evaluations for Values and Opinions in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16786/) (2024)
- [The Carbon Emissions of Writing and Illustrating Are Lower for AI than for Humans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06219/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Using the full potential of LLMs in higher education is hindered by challenges with access to LLMs. The two main access modes currently discussed are paying for a cloud-based LLM or providing a locally maintained open LLM. In this paper, we describe the current state of establishing an open LLM infrastructure at FernUniversit"at in Hagen under the project name FLEXI (FernUni LLM Experimental Infrastructure). FLEXI enables experimentation within teaching and research with the goal of generating strongly needed evidence in favor (or against) the use of locally maintained open LLMs in higher education. The paper will provide some practical guidance for everyone trying to decide whether to run their own LLM server.