Using generative AI for your research can enhance your work in several ways, including adding efficiency to certain research processes and workflows, especially with the research discovery tools that are increasingly evolving.
KEY BENEFITS OF USING GENERATIVE AI FOR RESEARCH
- Conducting initial background research, e.g., for entry-level knowledge on a topic, domain or discipline
- Supporting conversational and iterative brainstorming to help you generate ideas for a research topic or question
- Generating keywords and search terms that you can then use in Omni or one of the library's research databases.
- Discovering literature (see Research Discovery & Workflow Tools etc.)
- Generating literature maps (see Research Discovery & Workflow Tools etc.)
- Summarizing documents or creating basic outlines based on text you input
- Translating text to different languages (it's not fluent in every language but covers many)
- Help with writing or debugging code
- Analyzing and annotating information
Keep in Mind
- As most of these tools are commercial, there can be lack of transparency about how they were created, and the data used to train them and how it was processed.
- With all the benefits listed above, you need to be equally mindful of the limitations that apply to these tools.
- The bottom line is follow York University guidelines and always consider the benefits and limitations as two sides of the same coin!
