Recommendations or Requests?
Generative AI is making rapid advances! Email us at csbsjureference@csbsju.edu with suggestions or updates for this guide, or to request Instructional Technology- and librarian-led programming on generative AI. Sessions can be geared toward faculty/staff or students, with formats including discussion forums, hands-on workshops, and in-class instruction sessions. We can help you and your students explore ethical and effective uses for generative AI and develop a better sense of its limitations.
Staying Updated on Generative AI in Higher Ed
Higher education publications like Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and EdTech Magazine include frequent write-ups on generative AI and its impact on higher ed, while major newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post help provide broader updates on generative AI.
Additional resources:
- Matt Wolfe's YouTube channel for weekly updates on all things AI.
- Bryan Alexander's "Resources for Exploring ChatGPT and Higher Education" helps identify key readings and resources. He continues to add new resources to the list since first publishing it in December 2022.
- Anna Mills curates both "AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points for Inquiry" and "AI Text Generators: Sources to Stimulate Discussion Among Teachers," which include extensive reading lists and link out to relevant resources.
- Lance Eaton, Director of Digital Pedagogy at College Unbound, compiles "Educational Resources on AI" and "Classroom Policies for AI Generative Tools."
Additional Resources
- Awesome ChatGPT PromptsA collection of prompt examples to be used with the ChatGPT model.
- Generative AI & the College ClassroomResource page from Barnard College's Center for Engaged Pedagogy.
- How to Become an Expert on A.I. (New York Times series, March 2023)From the On Tech: A.I. newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Become an expert on ChatGPT and other cutting-edge chatbots in just five days.
- Can ChatGPT write an academic paper? Review of "A Day in the Life of ChatGPT"Mashrin Srivastava tried to get ChatGPT to write a full academic paper. This report reviews the process used, and the results generated by ChatGPT. It finds the generated paper unconvincing as an academic work, still subject to the well-known weaknesses of large language models.
- Tools such as ChatGPT threaten transparent science; here are our ground rules for their useNature, along with all Springer Nature journals, has formulated principles specifying how large language models (LLMs) can be used in papers.
Need Help?
Generative AI Tools
Two of the most popular generative AI chatbots currently:
- OpenAI's ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/ (requires free account; ChatGPT Plus paid subscription also available)
- Google Bard: https://bard.google.com/ (no account required)
Some of these additional tools are currently only available to test groups:
- Bing Chat (Microsoft)
- Elicit: "Elicit uses language models to help you automate research workflows, like parts of literature review. Elicit can find relevant papers without perfect keyword match, summarize takeaways from the paper specific to your question, and extract key information from the papers."
- GPT-4 (OpenAI)
- Microsoft 365 Copilot (Microsoft): see Microsoft adds AI tools to office apps like Outlook, Word (AP) and You may soon be able to use AI in Microsoft Word, Outlook (WaPo) for overviews
- Perplexity
AI Content Detectors
There are several free and paid tools available that are designed to "catch" generative AI-produced content. GPTZero is one example of an AI content detector frequently used in higher ed. However, results can vary considerably across these tools and results are inconclusive at best.
Some faculty members might want to explore these tools if/when building an academic misconduct case against a suspected student, but results from AI content detectors are not considered definitive "proof" of academic misconduct or plagiarism.
To learn more about specific AI content detectors, try referring to eWeek's Top AI Detectors: Comparison Chart or similar.