Artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere these days. Many students and faculty are struggling with questions surrounding AI, from whether it should be incorporated into classes to how to effectively use it in research, and everything in between. Clemson Libraries is here to help with a number of resources that help outline the pros and cons of using AI tools to locate reliable information, as well as how to use AI ethically and responsibly.
Research librarian Anne Grant is the Libraries’ AI literacy coordinator, and she has put together an online guide that provides some tools and guidance on how to use AI.
“AI is everywhere now, it’s in everything we use, and I think sometimes people think AI is omniscient, and it isn’t,” she said. “It can’t know things that it doesn’t have access to, but people just trust it to be the be all, end all. Until they can understand the limitations of these tools, then people can’t understand how to critically think about the information they get out of AI.”
The guide includes a link to an AI literacy Canvas course that any student, faculty or staff member can take to learn more about how to using AI and evaluating the results it provides. She also created the AI 10 Step Challenge to help researchers better understand and use generative AI tools.
Grant is also available to provide in-person instruction related to AI to classes. Contact her at anne1@nullclemson.edu to schedule an instruction session.
Grant also leads the Libraries’ AI Literacy Working Group, which is a group of Libraries faculty and staff dedicated to identifying resources and providing training and support opportunities related to AI literacy. Grant said that because librarians are experts in how to access information, it makes perfect sense for them to be on the forefront of helping people learn about AI and how it can help them.
“There are so many prongs to AI work — there’s the information piece, the ethics piece, the IT piece, the data privacy piece. We’re just trying to contribute to the conversation by talking about the information piece and working with people across campus who are holding the other pieces and trying to give people a central place they can come to learn more about AI.”