By Oliver Allchin, Graham McElearney and Rosa Sadler
This blog post looks at two key areas in which Library are supporting the use of GenAI in learning and teaching - discovering information, and Critical AI literacy.
Discovering Information
As librarians we are committed to supporting people in learning how to find, evaluate, synthesise and cite information effectively. Traditionally, learning to review the literature in your field has been a key skill for students in most disciplines.
We are interested in exploring how AI can make the literature review process more efficient and accessible, without replacing the useful and transferable skills students develop when undertaking literature reviews.
GenAI has the potential to simplify and streamline literature reviews, for example by allowing students to query the literature using natural language, or by summarising and synthesising key information. However such technologies are also prone to hallucinations, oversimplifications, omissions and inaccuracies.
Our broader approach to GenAI, developed in partnership with other student and staff facing professional services teams, is to highlight the issues to be aware of (see Critical GenAI literacy below) and suggest ways in which AI could be used ethically and responsibly, in a way that enhances rather than replaces students’ ability to think creatively and critically.
This approach enables students and teachers to make informed choices about when it may be appropriate and helpful to use AI in their work.
We have developed two guides:
- Generative AI Literacy: this is a general introduction to GenAI, and an exploration of the issues students should consider if using it as a source of information. Its aim is to foster a critical but positive approach to GenAI.
- Using AI and GenAI to find information | StudySkills@Sheffield: this resource offers practical guidance on how GenAI could assist in a literature search, complementing more traditional search skills.
These are evolving resources that will change as new tools emerge. Google Gemini is currently the University’s supported GenAI tool - it’s a useful tool for helping students identify search terms, develop and troubleshoot a search strategy, and suggest suitable databases to search. However it doesn’t currently have the capacity to search any peer-reviewed academic research, which makes it unsuitable for searching the literature directly.
GenAI functionality is already being incorporated into bibliographic databases like Web of Science, Scopus and Dimensions, and we will adapt our guidance accordingly as things develop.
Supporting Critical GenAI literacy in the Digital Commons
The Digital Commons is our new digital makerspace in the Information Commons. One of our key areas of activity is looking at developing Critical GenAI literacy. Critical GenAI literacy is our collective term understanding the benefits and limitations of using GenAI , and in particular, addresses some of the issues mentioned above - inaccuracies and errors, encoded biases (e.g. racial or gender based), environmental costs, misinformation, copyright issues, and the broader potential impact on creativity. It sees GenAI as being as much of a socio-economic and cultural phenomenon as it is a technology.
As “creativity” is at the core of the Digital Commons’ mission, we are also exploring ways we can enable students to be creators of GenAi experiences, rather than just as consumers. One way we are doing this is teaching students how to create GenAI powered “avatars”, using our WondaVR platform. Students can create and train their own chatbots with which they can practise role playing skills, language skills, model conversations with historical or fictional characters.
We are running two sessions in the Educ-AI-tion Week to support this:
Come and create a GenAI powered chatbot
Critical AI Literacy - understanding the implications of AI for your studies and beyond
The Digital Commons is a new digital creative makerspace located in the Information Commons, where students from any discipline can come and explore their creativity. This is supported by activities and workshops in 3d printing, digital stitchcraft, creative coding, critical Generative AI literacy, XR and digital cutting technologies.
