AI Literacy for Students

There are many different ways to use AI tools to help with research. A few suggestions are listed below. Again, be sure to check with your instructor and/or assignment to ascertain what is permitted. Your interpretation of AI use for "brainstorming" may be different than what your instructor considers allowable.

• Keyword development > AI tools can be very helpful in expanding or narrowing keyword search terms on a topic
• Study tutor > Create a study guide to help you prepare for an exam. AI tools can ask questions and give feedback on your answers.
• Brainstorming and mind mapping > Many tools can help you expand on a research topic and create mind maps to visualize your research process
• Revising and editing > Experiment with copy editing and revising your assignments to evaluate your writing style
• Topic exploration > Not sure where to start on a new research topic? Gather background information, discover sub topics, and expand or narrow your topic parameters
• Literature reviews > Do you need to canvas published literature on a topic? There are tools to help you gather and summarize sources
• Coding and data analysis > AI tools can help debug or generate code. Some tools enable you to upload a data set for exploration, analysis and visualization
• Summarizing or explaining new concepts > Do you have an article, instructions, or a video that you don't understand? AI tools can summarize and explain things in simpler terminology
• Example generation > Given a model or question with appropriate parameters, AI tools can generate further cases
• Translation > There are many tools that can help with language translation in both written and audio formats
• Interview preparation > Conduct practice interviews with AI before you speak to actual people. Ask for feedback on your questions or interview style
• Deliberate practice > AI can provide consistent, targeted feedback to practice and improve exercises, skills and training

Before you jump into using GenAI for research, try these warm-up exercises to get a feel for the responses.

• Ask a series of questions about a topic you know a lot about (What are you an “expert” in?  It does not need to be academic)
  • Are the answers accurate?
  • Does it provide links to resources about the topic?
  • What happens when you correct it?
• Ask the LLM to write a story about two fictional characters from different worlds meeting in one of the character’s worlds. Then ask it to write the story set in the other character’s world. 
  • Was the depiction of the characters accurate?
  • Was the writing entertaining?
  • Would you want to read/watch more of the story it produced?

Adapted from "Artificial Intelligence" by Xavier University Library.