This page is designed to suggest some ways you can use Generative AI (Gen AI) to support your studies, particularly your dissertation, and to prompt you to reflect on the benefits and limitations of using these tools in your work. The examples on this page have been tested using the free version of ChatGPT.
Before you use any Generative AI as part of your research or writing, you should read the University's Student guidance for using Generative AI in learning
We would also recommend that you read the information on Critical use of AI to give you an understanding of the tools that you are using.
Always ask yourself: am I still the author of this work?
Generative AI tools can sound very plausible, even when fabricating false information. This is why you must always check any information you take from a Gen AI tool, as the accuracy of any work you produce is ultimately your responsibility.
Gen AI tools, including ChatGPT, are prone to "hallucinating" - providing incorrect or misleading responses to prompts. This includes the sources and quotations they might provide to back up the information they give you. As Yee et al. explain, "One common result of a request for citations or sources is the acknowledgement of a real scholar... but with publication titles or journals listed that sound realistic, yet do not exist" (2023). You may well find that what sounds like the perfect source for your dissertation has been invented just for your query.
Steps to take:
It is likely that you already use a range of tools to find resources for your assessments and dissertation. Each of these works in a slightly different way and provides you with different types of information. In brief:
None of these tools is neutral. All of them in some way make decisions about what to show you and in what order they will rank any search results. It is always worth asking yourself "which voices am I hearing and which voices are missing from these search results?"
In her book Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble emphasises the importance of search and result ranking in the distribution of information to the public. Noting that this has passed from public to private commercial ownership, and that journalists are under pressure to "modify their content for the express purposes of increasing advertising traffic," (2018, p.154), she explains that:
"Search does not merely present pages but structures knowledge, and the results retrieved in a commercial search engine create their own particular material reality. Ranking is itself information that also reflects the political, social, and cultural values of the society that search engine companies operate within..." (Noble, 2018. p.148)
Gen AI also makes decisions about what to show you and how it is displayed, and also contains bias. There is an added danger that because you are reading the output of one "voice" it can seem more authoritative. When you view a list of results from an internet search you instinctively make decisions about which to use, which to trust, and with Gen AI some of that process is taken away from you.
We would recommend that whatever use you make of Generative AI to find resources for your assessments, you use library search tools and search engines alongside it to provide a broader set of results and to check what you are being told.
Noble, S.U. (2018) Algorithms of oppression : how search engines reinforce racism. New York: New York University Press.
Yee, K. F., Whittington, K., Doggette, E., & Uttich, L. (2023). ChatGPT assignments to use in your classroom today. Available at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/oer/8/ (Accessed: 13 August 2024)
The examples below each idea are prompts I entered into the free version of ChatGPT. As this is a conversational tool, I will amend my prompts, or ask further questions, if ChatGPT doesn't quite give the answer I need.
All of these prompts will provide you with information which you can then take back to other search tools and develop. Don't ever take the information from Gen AI and drop it straight into your work.
A number of AI based search tools are being developed to search and present results in different ways. Some of these are free to use while others require a subscription. University of Gloucestershire libraries do not specifically endorse any of these tools, but offer them as suggestions for further exploration:
Can be used to create a map or graphic to identify associations between published research through citation mapping and analysis. They primarily use either Google Scholar or Semantic Scholar as their data source.
Semantic Scholar is used as a data source by many academic AI literature searching tools. Elicit uses Semantic Scholar as its data source and then uses its own AI to summarise evidence and provides a range of filters and tools to extract types of content (e.g. research methodologies, objectives, limitations). Does not critique.
Generative AI tools are constantly being developed and changing in functionality. Aspects of this guide may become out-of-date very quickly, and guidance may be updated frequently.
The University of Gloucestershire currently doesn't endorse or provide any of the AI tools mentioned in this guide. Always check back with the University's Student guidance for using Generative AI in learning if you have any questions.
This page was created by Rachel Reid, September 2024.