AI Literacy

"I want to engage my students with generative AI as part of the research process."

Exploring generative AI tools as part of the research process provides an opportunity to teach students how to think critically about information and the tools we use to discover and create it, which is fundamental to both information literacy and AI literacy.

1. Consider your goals and how much time you want to devote to teaching with/about AI. Oregon State University’s AI Decision Tree is helpful.
2. Consider FERPA and privacy considerations. 
3. Use licensed TXST Tools to mitigate some FERPA and privacy concerns.
4. Be clear with your students about what is and is not allowed, and how they should cite and document their use of AI.

What is AI Literacy? 

Generative AI chatbots are designed to be plausible rather than credible.

• They often hallucinate, which means they make up information, including citations to non-existent scholarly sources

Generative AI chatbots do not have access to and have not been trained on the vast majority of scholarly materials which are behind a paywall (available via the Libraries subscription databases).

• Although this is beginning to change with some scholarly publishers selling access to journal contents to train large language models, the majority of scholarly information is not available to train models.

Because generative AI chatbots create original responses to prompts, the information they provide is not reproducible.

• In addition, you may find that multiple users supplying the same prompt to a chatbot at the same time will produce different responses.

Students still create an annotated bibliography!

• Add a requirement for students to explain the search path.
• Example: library.txst.edu > select Start Your Research > search string [public health AND impact of New World Screw worm] > Filter: date and full text > this article was [results 3] from the list

Students use Microsoft CoPilot to brainstorm a research topic.

• They then test that research topic by searching for appropriate sources for their information need (news, scholarly articles, etc.) on the Web or using library databases.

Students use Microsoft CoPilot to brainstorm search terms.

• Then use those terms to find sources in library databases.

Ask students to engage with a TXST generative AI chatbot of their choice: Perplexity, CoPilot or Gemini. Give them all a specific prompt to use, regardless of what tool they choose to use.

• Ask them to evaluate the results based on the RADAR acronym.

Students use Microsoft CoPilot to generate background information on a topic.

• They then compare that information to what they have learned in class or what they find in a background source such as an encyclopedia. They may also reflect on what is and is not useful about the chatbot output, or correct/edit it.

Students ask Microsoft CoPilot to generate a list of sources on a topic related to the class.

• They then search for those sources to determine if they are real or hallucinated, which helps students develop search skills. They may also reflect on whether the sources generated were helpful to their research - if they were real, were they specific or relevant enough? If they were hallucinations, were there elements that helped them find good sources such as journals or authors covering the topic? 

Students use Microsoft CoPilot to develop an annotated bibliography on a course topic.

• They then develop their own annotated bibliography and compare the two. What was useful and what wasn’t? Were any sources hallucinated? Were annotations correct, helpful or specific enough?
• Use this to teach source evaluation and RADAR: check out the learning materials on the Research Tutorials Guide

Students use a literature search visualization tool such as Research Rabbit or LitMaps

• They will discover new scholarship and understand connections between scholars and how research develops over time, known as the “scholarly conversation.”
• Use these tools to discuss bias and publishing pros and cons