This page is about artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education. The focus is on the use of AI in information searching, but we also address some general ethical issues raised by the use of AI.
AI refers to the ability of computer systems to perform tasks and processes that earlier have required human intelligence. Some of these tasks include image recognition, speech recognition, problem solving and decision making. AI is already used in many areas of our daily lives: in recommendations provided by applications, automatic translation, targeted ads, house price predictions, etc.
Image: Freepik, svstudioart, free license
Image: Freepik, svstudioart, free license (edited)
Source: Kivinen, K. (ed.). Digital information literacy: AI Guide for Teachers, p. 9. Avoin yhteiskunta ry / Faktabaari EDU 2025.
You cannot use generative AI to evaluate search results. Evaluating information is a human trait that's based on criteria that you consider relevant. As the information seeker, you have to decide whether the source is relevant to your work or not.
You can use GenAI tools to clarify and translate difficult texts, because it works well in condensing or reformatting text. Always remember source criticism: do not believe everything and remember that the tool may present biased views.
AI tools may not reveal the original sources they use and they may not use sources that meet the requirements for academic writing. In some cases when checked, the sources have proven to be made-up or inaccurate. If you use an AI tool that creates some elements of your work, the person reviewing your work needs to know what is your work and what is from somewhere else.
AI tools may give the impression they make academic research easy and quick. From a student's perspective, this can mean that students do not learn basic research skills, such as information seeking, critical evaluation, and problem-solving.
Always find out how AI tools handle the data you input. Generally, anything entered into AI tools is stored outside the EU/EEA area and cannot be removed from there. Do not input personal data, trade secrets, or confidential or classified information into AI tools.
For example, to use ChatGPT, you have to create an account, which enables data collection by the tool. This is a privacy issue. AI tools may require you to provide a phone number or other personal information. You must be careful about what information you share when creating an account online.
Read the AI tool's privacy policy and terms of use carefully. Remember that when you use these tools, your conversations are typically stored by the tool and used for the tool's own purposes. In particular free versions of AI tools use conversations to develop and train the tool further.
In some cases AI tools can use online resources without the permission of the authors. Respecting copyright is a part of good scientific practice, which is why it's very important to be critical of the use of the tools in your studies and research.
Generative AI tools are usually unable to provide correct references for the texts it writes. It can produce a bibliography when requested, but the references might be incorrect or made-up. Also, GenAI tools may not be able to generate bibliographies according to specific citation styles, so you will need to check the bibliography. Reference managers, like Zotero and others like it, support numerous citation styles and are good tools for that purpose.
Systematic information seeking requires you to document the search process transparently and reproducibly. How search tools using artificial intelligence function is complex, and the search process - how the search results are generated - is generally not clear. In addition the same input may produce different results for different users at different times.
Even though creating a summary or translation of a text from, for example, an e-book or an article is easy to do with AI tools, it may not necessarily be allowed in the use license. Check the license terms of the resources provided by the library before uploading them into an AI tool. In principle, pasting licensed materials into AI tools is prohibited unless it's explicitly allowed in the license terms. Pasting licensed resources into AI tools is only permitted if the terms allow it. You can check the terms of the materials provided by the library in the Databases A-Z list.
This guide aims to support Turku UAS students and staff in information searching. It is a major part of the study materials in the Information Skills Online Course.
Artificial intelligence, AI means the ability of a machine to use skills traditionally associated with human intelligence, such as reasoning, learning, planning, or creating.
Generative artificial intelligence, GenAI combines the power of machine learning, deep learning, and AI. In response to a request made to it, it is capable of creating original content such as text, videos, audio, code or images. The generative AI model is trained with the help of data and feedback, and based on this, it is able to create new innovative outputs. You can talk with GenAI almost like a normal person. ChatGPT and Copilot are examples of GenAI tools.
Large Language Models (LLM) are models based on the probabilities of the occurrence of words and sequences of words, which predict the continuation of a given text input or generate text according to the request. Because of LLM's GenAI tools can talk almost like a human.
Machine learning is an area of artificial intelligence that has its roots in statistics. Machine learning methods learn based on the given data without separate programming of rules. They improve their performance in a specific task as more experience or data accumulates.
Copilot is a conversational AI application available to students and staff of Turku University of Applied Sciences. It retrieves information from the internet and generates images based on verbal descriptions. The data is not stored by the AI, nor is it used for AI training. Conversation messages are automatically destroyed at the end of the session.
Five different AI models to choose from and interact with. Conversations are stored locally on your own computer, not transferred to external servers, and the data is not used for AI training. You can delete the information yourself, or it will start to be deleted once 30 conversations are reached. All personal data (e.g., IP address) is cleaned from the metadata before the prompt is sent to the model providers.
Keenious searches for articles on the same topic based on the text provided and generates a topic list to refine the search. Note that copyright may prevent entire articles from being input into the application.
In the free version, the number of search results is limited to 10 articles, and you can only perform one search per day in a language other than English. The search text length is limited to 1000 words. In the paid Keenious Plus version, the number of search results is limited to 1000 articles, there is no limit on the length of the search text, and you can perform 10 cross-language searches per day.
Freely available, but registering provides access to more features. Similar search functionality to Google Scholar. Displays article citations and finds the most relevant articles. Makes article recommendations based on the articles selected by the user.
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