The USM libraries have recently adopted an AI tool to help students with research. The research tool can help students find scholarly sources for their research. The tool provides up to 5 relevant sources to help students with research.
What separates the AI tools from the library’s regular search engine is that the AI answers questions asked in a conversational language. A student can launch the AI and talk to it like they would to a friend or a professor, and still find the research papers that they are looking for. While the student is able to find more than five sources by going to Seymour info, the AI research tool can only provide up to five sources for the time being.
Elizabeth La Beaud, the head of University Libraries Technology, explained why the research tool is important.
“Our target demographic is students who have just started researching and do not yet know how to find the sources that they are looking for,” La Beaud said. “The AI can help you look for academic resources even if you do not know your key terms or do not know how to phrase your sentences so that you can get optimal results.”
The tool also gives an overview of the top five sources. Citations are included with the sources that the tool provides. The search queries may also be done in certain languages other than English, and the AI will generate a response in the language that the question was asked in. The tool can be accessed through the library’s website. The library has also provided a link to a short video that demonstrates how the tool can be used.
However, the program is still in its preliminary phase and needs student feedback to get better. The tool cannot access content from JSTOR, DataCite, Elsevier, APA, and Conde Nast for now. Newspapers and retracted sources are also excluded from the source. It is because the platform hosting the AI does not yet have permission from those vendors to access their content. The library has also advised students to be careful when using any language learning model and to verify the responses.
The AI is not the only new AI initiative seen in the library. The library also houses an AI room now that features computers with higher processing power. The room can be booked by anybody with a valid USM student address. The room can also be booked by instructors to host a class in the room.
