Library Guides: Artificial Intelligence: Home

Getting Started

This guide is intended to help students, faculty, and staff at John Cabot University to navigate the waters of generative AI. It aims at providing the JCU community with resources related to core AI issues. As the field of generative artificial intelligence is an ever-changing landscape, we will continue updating the guide, with the caveat that information on AI becomes easily obsolete. The present guide is designed to help the JCU community understand and engage with generative AI; it does not represent an endorsement of any particular tool or platform under any respect.

ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Quick Start Guide
This UNESCO document provides an overview of how artificial intelligence works, raising some of the main challenges and ethical implications of AI in higher education.
MLA Student Guide to AI Literacy
This guide was written by participants of the Critical AI Literacy for Reading, Writing, and Languages Workshop, an initiative of the MLA-CCCC Task Force on Writing and AI.

A student guide to navigating college in the artificial intelligence era - Elon/AAC&U
This guide was written from the student perspective and includes practical advice about using AI responsibly while in college and preparing for the AI future. An initiative of Elon University in partnership with AAC&U, the guide was developed with the collaboration and review of faculty, scholars, academic leaders, and students at universities around the world.

For more on JCU becoming more AI literate and what that means, check out our dedicated resources!

The Basics

The A to Z of Artificial Intelligence
To help everyone engage more fully with the AI debate, TIME has put together a handy glossary of its most common terminology.
How AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard work – visual explainer
A visual walk-through of how this type of artificial intelligence works, from The Guardian.
A jargon-free explanation of how AI large language models work
A gentle primer, from Ars Technica
Techopedia Dictionary
Definitions provided by technology experts
Artificial Intelligence Glossary: Neural Networks and Other Terms Explained
The concepts and jargon you need to understand ChatGPT, from The New York Times
Artificial Intelligence, Explained
Features basic history and definitions of what AI is and is not, from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy
Large language models, explained with a minimum of math and jargon
Want to really understand how large language models work? Here’s a gentle primer.
By Tiim Lee, author of Understanding AI, and Dr. Tott, cognitive scientist at University of California, San Diego
AI Atlas - CNET
A one-stop shop on all things related to AI from CNET, includes: glossary, news, reviews, and tips.

Covers questions like what is generative AI, how does it work, what are some of the risks & limitations, by Henrik Kniberg (Generative AI entrepreneur, trainer, and product developer)

AI in the Library Stacks

Tools

For a complete and comparative list of all Gen AI tools, feel free to explore this Product Tracker from Ithaka S+R. The document breaks down the tools by purpose (discovery, writing, general purpose, workflow, image creation, etc.) and includes basic information including the pros and cons for each.

What is in a name?

To Use or Not to Use?

For more about using and how, visit the Citing page of this Guide!

If you need help researching, evaluating sources, or using some of the Library's databases, the Reference Librarians are available!