AI Guidance for Researchers

AI can help you explore ideas, organise information and communicate your research, while leaving you to apply the expertise, critical thinking and judgement your research requires.

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Useful tips for Research staff

Create a summary

By providing text or documents to Copilot, you can ask it to create a high level summary, or identify key areas that would be relevant to your role. This can give you areas to focus on at a glance and help cut through to give an initial overview before you review the content more deeply.

An example prompt for this could be:

Review this report and identify areas that are more relevant to a Digital Skills Developer. I am particularly interested in AI policy across UK universities, and research uses of AI.

Collate information from public reports

If you have several reports to read, Copilot can help you to create a high level summary, to give you some top level insights before you read through. You can copy content from publicly available reports (for example, National Student Survey data, JISC reports, new Department for Education guidance), and ask Copilot to provide a quick summary.

An example prompt could be:

Here are three recently published reports around student use of AI. Identify key themes, actions, risks, and recommendations.

It's always important to remember that AI isn't perfect, and may miss certain things that are relevant to your department or role, so be sure to check the outputs and don't rely on AI to complete all the reading for you. Treat it more like a bicycle; it can help you get to places more quickly and easily, but you still need to put in the work to reach the final destination.

Break down work

You can ask Copilot to help break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks. This would be by describing the piece of work you're trying to complete, any key deadlines or milestones and requesting how you would like it to be broken down.

An example prompt for this could be:

I need to complete a report on our department's research funding. I have 4 weeks to produce the initial findings. Create a plan that includes sections for legislation, ethics, and data management, and areas of focus over the next 4 weeks. Break this into weekly milestones and tasks.

Roleplay an examiner

You can ask AI to roleplay as an examiner in your chosen topic, and ask you questions, and get you to drill deeper into your responses. This can be a great way to check your understanding on a topic, or to prep for an interview, by helping you understand which areas you can speak about confidently, and which you are less sure on and need to improve your understanding.

Be aware though, AI will be more generic than an expert in the field would be, so it's always useful to speak with your peers or tutors to get an experience that’s most relevant to your subject.

An example prompt for this could be:

Act as a university lecturer and ask me viva-style questions about research methods. Challenge my answers and ask follow-up questions.

Proofread your work

You can ask AI to proofread your work, to identify any errors in grammar, spelling mistakes, or inconsistencies in your language. By uploading a document into Copilot, you can ask it to review the entire document in context.

An example prompt for this could be:

Act as a proofreader and identify any errors or unclear wording in this document.

It's important to always be aware of the content you're adding to Copilot, so don’t copy any information that could be sensitive or personal into Copilot. For tips on anonymising data, see the AI Fundamentals online course, or the AI security Help pages.