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Navigating Technology [TEST] : AI Policies & Tools
Generative AI Policies & Tools: Module 6 of 6
This page offers an overview of AI policies available at your college, helping you understand specific guidelines around using generative AI in academic work. It also introduces a selection of AI tools for generating text and images, highlighting their features and appropriate uses for various tasks. By staying informed, you can use AI responsibly and in line with your school’s policies..
Tools for AI Assistance
Tools for Various Levels of AI Assistance
Policies around generative AI in assignments can vary widely between colleges and even among individual instructors. Some institutions allow AI tools for tasks like brainstorming or research assistance, while others might limit or prohibit their use, especially in assignments focused on assessing personal understanding. Knowing and following your college or course-specific guidelines is essential to stay within academic integrity standards. The graphic below outlines various ways AI tools can be used, organized by levels of permitted assistance, to help you see how AI might be applied appropriately under your institution’s guidelines.
AI Tools
Selected Generative AI Tools
If you're permitted to use Artificial Intelligence for research assignments, consider which tool is right for you:
- ChatGPT- opens in a new window
An updated version of OpenAI which interacts in a conversational way. The dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. ChatGPT is a sibling model to InstructGPT which is trained to follow an instruction and provide a detailed response. - CopyAI- opens in a new window
A platform aimed at copywriting; further, it has the most diverse preset text types including 'Essay Outline' and 'Essay Introduction'. It is now available for free (with sign up) and is monetizing with a pro account. - Inferkit- opens in a new window
A basic text generator that includes slider options like “temperature” that control the ‘randomness’ of GPT-3. - OpenAI Playground- opens in a new window
A basic text generator with access to several versions of previous iterations of GPT-3. - Speedwrite- opens in a new window
A summarizing platform targeted at students, this site summarizes, spins (paraphrases) and creates text based on inputs of 100 words or more, and includes a Wikipedia plug-in (Morrison, 2022). - Writefull- opens in a new window
Targeting post-graduate academics, this site has several functions to explore, including creating abstracts for publishing in academic research journals.
Text-to-image generators are trained on billions of existing images and art works, each with a tagged caption and keywords. These platforms can generate images based on the visual patterns and textual associations learned from the dataset. Once a user enters a text prompt, an AI image generator produces an image within seconds. It "responds" to natural language exchanges with a user and can refine an image generated based on subsequent prompts by a user. It can create different variations of an artwork.
AI image generators can be used for different purposes - from assisting one's own artwork to stealing the style of another artist. These tools can both inspire and hinder creativity and originality depending on the skills and purpose of a user. They are also controversial because of a concern that some companies will use AI to generate cheap and fast designs instead of paying artists for their work.
- Adobe Firefly- opens in a new window
AI tools for text to image, generative fill, text effects, generative recolor, 3D to image, and extend image (change the aspect ratio). Also included in Adobe Photoshop beta. - Bing Image Creator- opens in a new window
A free AI image generator powered by OpenAI's latest DALL-E technology. If you have a Microsoft account and access to Bing Chat, you can also access the image creator from there. - DALL-E 2- opens in a new window
OpenAI is the company behind both DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT. DALL-E 2 is also available as an API, which allows its integration with a different application. - Midjourney- opens in a new window
Midjourney is a popular AI image generators. The tool can be accessed via Discord, which is a free online text and voice chat service. - Stable Diffusion- opens in a new window
Built on open source code, Stable Diffusion can be downloaded to use on a computer while both DALL-E and Midjourney are cloud based. Stable Diffusion can also produce higher resolution images than the other two platforms.
- Elicit- opens in a new window
Using large language models (LLMs), Elicit finds papers relevant to your topic by searching through papers and citations and extracting and synthesizing key information. - Perplexity- opens in a new window
Using LLMs, perplexity is a search engine that provides AI-generated answers (much like ChatGPT) including citations which are linked above the summaries. - Semantic Scholar- opens in a new window
Semantic Scholar (which supplies underlying data for many of the other tools on this list) provides brief summaries ('TLDR's) of the main objectives and results of papers. - Research Rabbit- opens in a new window
Research Rabbit is a citation-based mapping tool that focuses on the relationships between research works. It uses visualizations to help researchers find similar papers and other researchers in their field.
Generative AI at your College
Generative AI Resources
Choose your college from the dropdown menu above.
- Lambton College Academic Policies - Opens in a new window
(4000-4-5, 2000-7-1, 4000-5-15, 2000-5-1)
Note: If your college isn't listed above, be sure to contact your instructor for specific guidelines on using artificial intelligence tools in your coursework.
Other Resources
- Toronto Metropolitan UniverstiyPrinciples and Guidelines on Generative Artificial Intelligence in Learning and Teaching
- University of TorontoChampioning academic integrity in the age of AI
- Wilfrid Laurier UniversityGenerative AI in Teaching and Learning | A Guide to Teaching, Learning, & Assessment
Attributions
Information on this page was adapted, with permission from "Using Generative Artificial Intelligence for Research- opens in a new window" by Sheridan Library & Learning Services.
