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AI Tools and Resources

Fisher-specific information about how to access and use Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and other generative AI tools for searching. Plus, learn about specialized literature review and literature searching tools that use AI, such as Research Rabbit and Elicit

Word of Caution: Copyright

You should be cautious about entering any copyrighted material into the prompt of any generative AI tool.

Here are a few scenarios to consider:

  • If you are entering copyrighted material into any generative AI tool, you should be protected by Fair Use as long as you use the information for educational purposes and in a way that follows Fisher's Academic Integrity Policy.
  • You should not enter any copyrighted material into the prompts of any generative AI tool if you are not doing so for educational purposes. This may violate copyright.
  • You should be cautious about entering any of your own work into a generative AI prompt, as that material may be shared with others without acknowledging your authorship.

How to Access Fisher's Protected Generative AI Tools

These AI tools have been reviewed for safety and data privacy by St. John Fisher University's Office of Information Technology. The prompts you enter will not be used outside of our organization. Therefore, these tools are listed below as protected generative AI tools for use by faculty, staff, and students at Fisher.

There are many other generative AI tools that can only be accessed via personal account creation outside the systems and infrastructure that Fisher maintains and supports. You must evaluate if you want to create an account on these platforms and if you are comfortable sharing any of your own personal information necessary to create the account. For more information you can visit St. John Fisher University's AI Toolkit: How To Access AI Tools.

AI for Scholarship & Research

As a researcher, there are many ways you can use Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Language Learning Modules (LLM) for your scholarship. Below is a brief overview of how you can use these tools. For more information or in-depth support reach out to the DePeters Family Center for Innovation and Teaching Excellence or your liaison librarian.

Using ChatGPT or another Generative AI Tool

What to consider when using these tools in scholarship?

  • Help scope your research questions(s)
  • Generate keywords and concepts to build a search
  • Potentially help review portions of your paper

AI-Powered Tools

There are many AI powered research tools that can help you start a literature search. These tools, like ConnectedPapers or Scopus, use AI to connect literature through citation tracking and mapping. Some of the tools create literature maps or graphs to show you how different sources are used across the scholarly conversation. A list of selected tools is available below; you can also refer to Fisher's AI Toolkit:

Authorship and citing AI

As AI technology evolves, publishers, disciplinary associations, and publication manuals are working to develop ways to acknowledge when AI was used. Make sure to check a publisher's website before submitting a manuscript to know if you should be acknowledging use of AI and how they want that acknowledgment to be formatted.

AI-Powered Tools for Research

These tools use AI differently than Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. They are research-focused. They allow you to conduct literature searches in order to find articles on your topic.

Each of these tools can show you earlier papers referenced in an article and show you who has cited an article since it was published.

Lavery Library Tools

Other Tools

You can set up your own account to use these tools. 

  • Free limited access is available for each of these.
  • When you are using these tools, you will find abstracts and snippets from articles.
  • To find and read the full text (PDF) of an article, you can follow the steps in Lavery Library's tutorial Finding Full Text: Article Title. Visit Evaluating & Citing for more how-tos.