This year, University of Oregon Libraries have begun offering services and resources regarding the use of artificial intelligence. Some of these include drop-in consultation about AI use, one-on-one consultations, workshops and an AI resource guide.
The AI Consultation Station is open from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, in the Knight Library Learning Commons located on the first floor. During these times, a trained staff member is available to assist students with questions about AI in a drop-in format.
“For example, if a student said, ‘I have an assignment; I’m not sure what to do.’ Basically, what we would do is we’d help the student think through what information is provided by faculty, like, ‘Oh, it says right here in your syllabus.’ This is what you can do with AI, and this is what you need to ask permission for,” Nancy Cunnigham, associate vice provost and university librarian for data, access, research and teaching services, said.
Cunningham said the concept of a consultation station came about because many students and faculty members had questions about AI. For example, students didn’t know when or how to use it, and faculty “didn’t necessarily” have a policy about AI use at that point.
According to Cunningham, the AI consultation services are meant to help with inquiries about AI use, and there are limits to what students can use the resource for.
“What the consultation station is not doing is doing the homework for the students. (We’re not) saying, ‘Oh yeah, you can use (generative AI) without checking in with a faculty member,’” Cunningham said. “So it’s a very basic service. But what we’re trying to do here is create a lot of AI literacy in terms of inciting critical thinking.”
One-on-one support services are also offered, which allow students to receive tailored, in-depth instruction and assistance on AI use and literacy.
“We’re kind of thinking about this as another digital tool that we can help guide people in terms of how, and when and if to use it,” Chloe Barnett, undergraduate engagement and student success librarian, said.
Another service offered is AI workshops, which are drop-in workshops that anyone can register to take. The workshops are designed to teach lower-level undergraduates the basics of AI literacy, ethics and how large language models, software that is capable of linguistic analysis and prediction, work.
“The idea of AI literacy is (that) students understand how it works; they understand how they can think about it critically and apply their own judgment to the tools,” Barnett said. “So things like, ‘How do I determine if something is generated by AI? How do I determine if there’s bias, if there’s misinformation? How do I look?’”
Barnett said that a challenge with the AI workshops was that there had been a low attendance rate, with few students showing up to the workshops.
“We really haven’t had a lot of people come, so it’s a drop-in workshop anyone can register to attend, not many people have chosen to attend it,” Barnett said.
Barnett said there were also challenges when deciding what services to offer due to the rapidly changing AI landscape.
“We’re having to learn and learn and learn and learn about this new technology. I think it’s interesting, you know, to be able to do that, but also really challenging,” Barnett said.
“It is hard to know how to prepare people for a future that we don’t quite know what it’s going to look like.”
