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Generative AI Tools and Information Literacy: A Guide for Faculty

Considerations

Students:

Before you decide to use Generative AI tools to help you with your research, consider the following: 

  • Is the AI doing the work you're being assessed for? If so, you should carefully consider if your use of AI is ethical, and if using it for this purpose will help you in the long run. 
  • Does your professor allow this use of AI for this assignment? Your professor should have clearly indicated what uses of AI are allowed in your class syllabus. If you're ever not sure about your use of AI, ask your professor.

Faculty and Researchers:

Be cautious when using Generative AI to assist you with your research. Some academic publishers now have specific guidelines about how researchers may use AI tools in the research they publish. You may also want to consult any ethical guidelines developed by your discipline's professional association. It's always important to be transparent about your use of AI in whatever research you publish.

Integrating AI into the Research Process

AI tools can help you in the initial stages of your research, such as when you are: 

  • Trying to think of topic ideas and need inspiration (try asking: "You are a college student writing an argument paper for a first year composition class. The paper should be about the challenges presented by technology. Provide 5 potential topic ideas.")
  • Trying to formulate your topic of interest into a thesis statement (try asking: "You are a college student writing an argument paper for a first year composition class about the negative effects of social media use on adolescent girls. Provide 3 potential thesis statements.")
  • Brainstorming keywords you can use for searching research databases (try asking: "ou are a college student writing an argument paper for a first year composition class about the negative effects of social media use on adolescent girls. Provide a list of 10 relevant keywords for database searching.")

Generative AI tools can help you better understand the materials you're reading as part of the research process: 

  • Use a tool like ChatPDF to ask questions about an academic journal article in PDF form; this can help you better understand the source
  • Use a tool like Scholarcy to see summaries of academic journal articles, which will help you better understand the source

AI tools can also help you with your academic writing, although you should be careful not to ask these tools to actually write text for you, unless specifically encouraged to by your professor. 

  • Ask a tool like ChatGPT to give you feedback on your writing (try asking: "You are a college writing tutor. In a bulleted list, provide grammar, spelling, word choice, and clarity feedback on the text delimited by triple quotes.") 
  • Get ideas for synonyms to improve your writing (try asking: "Provide a list of 5 synonyms for the word 'relevant'.")

Here are some ways that generative AI can help you manage your time and study more effectively:

Time Management:
  • Ask a generative AI tool to make a study schedule for you leading up to a test
  • Ask a generative AI tool to give you a timeline for each step of an assignment, to help you get it done on time
  • Ask a generative AI tool to help you track how you spend your time and identify patterns (but be cautious about sharing too much personal data)
  • Use a productivity tool to improve your time management (note that most of these tools cost money)
Study Aid:
  • Ask a generative AI tool to explain a concept for a college student (or an even younger audience if you want a very simple explanation)
  • Ask a generative AI tool to provide examples of a difficult concept or process
  • Ask a generative AI tool to give you test questions about a concept from class
  • Ask a generative AI tool to summarize a recorded lecture
  • Ask a generative AI tool to give feedback on your own description of a class concept from memory

There are many existing AI apps that help researchers write a literature review. See the links below for some options.

AI Tools for Research

Prompt Generation Tips

The quality of your prompt, or the text you input into a Generative AI tool to elicit an output, can have a significant impact on the usefulness of the response you receive. Here is a model to help you write better prompts called the CLEAR Framework (developed by researcher, Dr. Leo Lo at the University of New Mexico): 

  • Concise - Keep your prompts short and clear. For example, instead of inputting "Please provide me with an extensive discussion of the factors that contribute to the climate crisis and its impacts in Chile in the last two decades," try "Identify recent factors behind climate change impact in Chile."
  • Logical - Make sure your prompts are well structured and coherent. For example, instead of inputting, "Please describe how to write a research paper and also how to choose a topic to research," try "List the steps to write a research paper, starting with choosing a research topic and ending with reviewing the final paper."
  • Explicit - Be clear about the specific outputs you would like, including scope, format, and content. For example, instead of inputting, "Describe the first world war," try "Provide a concise overview of World War I, including its causes, major battles, and consequences."
  • Adaptive - You may need to experiment with how you formulate your prompts based on the results you're getting. Be flexible and customize. For example, if you input the prompt, "How does social media negatively impact teens?" and the results are too general, try "How does Instagram negatively impact the self esteem of adolescent girls?"
  • Reflective - Both your understanding of Generative AI and the tools themselves will change over time. Regularly reflect on and evaluate your approach to prompt generation, so you can improve your use of Generative AI. 

Other tips:

  • "Act as if" - Use this phrase to tell the chatbot to take on a role that will help give a more helpful answer. For example, use phrases like, "Act as if you're a tutor for a college student" or "Act as if you're a librarian" before entering your question.
  • “Tell me what else you need to do this.” - End your query with this phrase to allow the generative AI to let you know what other information would be helpful. 
  • Break up your inquiry into manageable parts and continue the thread (also called "prompt stacking"). - Generative AI can work more effectively if you don't overload your prompt with too many requests or details. In addition, the tool learns more about what you might be looking for as you continue the thread. So break up your inquiry into smaller parts and continue to build on it to get more helpful answers.
  • Ask for options. This allows you to pick the best version for your information need.