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Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Student Research

An introduction to artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI and its impacts and ethical considerations for higher education. It includes resources for best use practices, potential instructional applications or mitigations.

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Database Topic Pages

Several topical databases offer curated pages on Artificial intelligence. Click on the shortcuts below to explore them.

How to Use the Boolean Search Strings

To jumpstart your research, you may find the following Boolean search strings on AI very useful in our databases or other scholarly open access (OA) collections. We recommend that you copy your preferred search string(s) in full, to preserve the critical punctuation and formatting, before pasting them into Eagle Library Search or one of our databases.

AI and ethics
(AI OR A.I. OR "artificial intelligence") AND ethic*
AI and its cons, risks, dangers, hazards etc.

(AI OR A.I. OR "artificial intelligence") AND (cons OR concern* OR risk* OR danger* OR hazard* OR threat* OR consequen* OR effect* OR impact* OR harm* OR destr* OR endanger* OR threat* OR hype OR oversell OR overstat* OR criti*)

AI and its pros, rewards, benefits, advantages etc.

(AI OR A.I. OR "artificial intelligence") AND (pros OR reward* OR benefit* OR advantage* OR importan* OR significan* OR revolution* OR reinvent* OR support* OR enthusias*)

AI innovations and uses

(AI OR A.I. OR "artificial intelligence") AND (potential OR uses OR applications OR possibilit* OR innovat* OR opportunit* OR innovat*)

AI, copyright, IP law, and legal implications

(AI OR A.I. OR "artificial intelligence") AND (legal OR law OR legislat* OR lawsuit) AND (copyright OR "intellectual property" OR IP OR theft)

A Note About Limiters (a.k.a. Filters): We recommend that students enable the Full Text filter when possible for library database searches. You may also consider adjusting the Publication Date range to the most recent 5 years to eliminate outdated results if you are not seeking historical information.

 

Practice Exercise - Student Database Searching

 

Think of a potential research topic. (If you're having trouble thinking of one, check out this potential topics list.) Visit a text generative AI bot (see this list for options) and prompt it to identify five possible synonyms or different ways of describing your topic, so you can expand your database search strings. Check out Basic Library Searching [How to build a Boolean search string] or chat with a librarian if you need help.

Example: You are thinking of doing research on gun laws. You can then test those alternative phrases generated (e.g. firearm legislation, 2nd amendment, regulation of weapons etc.) as part of your search strings in HCC's library databases.

Recommendations: In a text document, keep track of exactly how you wrote your request, when (date/time), and what the responses were by bot. Consider returning 3, 6, and 9 months from that time and note how (or if) the answers have changed over time and make note of the differences. Did the answers become more accurate or less accurate? Shorter or longer? More or less explicit? Would you use them again for this purpose? Write your responses.

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