AI Literacy

This guide focuses on generative AI.

We cover AI that can generate text, images, video, music, or speech. Examples: Microsoft Copilot (NAU's recommended tool) ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Adobe Firefly, Midjourney, Eleven Labs, Openart, Starrai, Hotpot and more.

This is a living document that will be updated regularly. 

Last updated on September 18, 2024.

We have based this guide on that created by Nicole Henning and contributors from the University of Arizona, as well as information provided through other NAU resources. We aim to keep this guide up to date and add relevant sections for NAU. But since new developments are happening so quickly, it's possible this may be out of date when you read it.

Elon University and the American Association of Colleges and Universities has also created A student guide to navigating college in the artificial intelligence era.

If you are new to the practice of using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, these short videos provide a useful introduction.

Practical AI for Instructors and Students (10 to 12 minutes each)
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

• Part 1: Introduction to AI for Teachers and Students
• Part 2: Large Language Models (LLMs)
• Part 3: Prompting AI
• Part 4: AI for Teachers
• Part 5: AI for Students

Adapted from NAU's Artifical intelligence resources site at https://nau.edu/provost/academic-operations/resources-policies/artificial-intelligence/.

Our work with GenAI technologies is aligned with larger principles about the role of higher education in preparing for the continued expansion of artificial intelligence capabilities. These principles are captured in the Higher education’s essential role in preparing humanity for the artificial intelligence revolution statement issued during the 18th annual United Nations lnternet Governance, held in October 2023 in Kyoto, Japan—and we are proud to have joined as signatories for this statement’s initial issue, represented by our President José Luis Cruz Rivera.

We encourage everyone to review the complete statement, and share only its top-level principles here:

• People, not technology, must be at the center of our work;
• We should promote digital inclusion within and beyond our institutions;
• Digital and information literacy is an essential part of a core education;
• AI tools should enhance teaching and learning;
• Learning about technologies is an experiential, lifelong process; and
• AI research and development must be done responsibly.

1. Fundamentals of Generative AI -- Microsoft Learn Training
2. What is generative AI? (University of Arizona)
3. How does MS Co-Pilot work?
4. Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot
5. Co-Pilot Prompts to try
6. Creating multimedia with AI tools (University of Arizona)

AI literacy is the ability to:

• critically evaluate AI technologies
• communicate and collaborate effectively with AI
• use AI as a tool, online, at home, and in the workplace.

From a 2020 paper, by Long and Magerko, who synthesized a variety of interdisciplinary literature into a set of core competencies.

1. Sometimes it gets confused if you change topics in the middle of a conversation. When you want to change the subject, start a new chat.
2. It will remember what you've said in the course of a conversation, so you don't have to repeat everything again. Just continue like you're talking to your intern.
3. Don't ask GenAI for a list of sources. It will often make them up. Instead use library search, library databases, or Google Scholar.
   See I can’t find the citations that ChatGPT gave me. What should I do?
4. Choose an output format. In addition to paragraphs it can give you a table, a bulleted list, ascii art, multiple choice quiz questions, emojis, computer code, and more.
5. In ChatGPT, for example, you can see a history of your conversations. You can go back to a previous conversation and continue it. If you like, in the settings you can delete your history and turn off the saving of future history. You can also export your history and save it on your own computer.
6. Remember, don't enter any personal, private data in GenAI, because it may use your input to help improve the model. The free version of ChatZGPT, for example, is a research experiment.  If you don't want your data used to help improve ChatGPT, you can turn it off in the settings. Go to your name, then Settings, then Data Controls and turn off, "Improve the model for everyone."