A student using a tablet in the Camper Coffee courtyard outside Queen's Building

Most of you will have grown up taking for granted that information is at your fingertips via the internet. We can get answers to many of our questions within seconds, but the biggest challenge is navigating the multiple voices and resources to reach reliable and relevant data and analysis.

As you begin your studies with us, it’s good to review your own digital literacy, so the next part of this course guides you you on thinking about how you find, interpret and evaluate information. This will help you to begin to understand what we mean by ‘critical evaluation’ in an academic context and should ensure that you avoid some of the common mistakes our students often make when approaching their first assignments.

Can you trust Google?

Whether we’re searching for information on industrial disputes in Bolivia or how to fix a broken TV, most of us turn to Google or a similar search engine.

But how much do you know about how those search results are generated? How does Google actually work?

You may be surprised to learn that a Google search does not actually search the Internet. It searches Google’s index of the web that is created when its ‘spiders’ (i.e. code that discovers and indexes web content) follow links from a ‘seed list’ of URLs to index new URLs.

Google’s index of the web comprises over 1 billion gigabytes of data, with up to 30 trillion web pages. The more popular a site, the more often the crawlers ‘visit’. When you run a search, an algorithm takes 200 different variables into account to order results based on Google’s ‘ranking’ of a site, its relevance, and your own search history.

You might also have noticed that when you run a search in Google, you often get a summary of information related to your search term on the right hand side of the list of search results. This is generated by Google’s Knowledge Graph. Watch this short video that explains how this works. As Google’s search engine inches closer to artificial intelligence, are we ceding too much control in favour of making information-finding ‘easier’?

It is important for students to understand how to use generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, appropriately and transparently in their studies. The university offers specific guidance on the proper use of generative AI tools. This guidance will help you navigate the ethical and academic standards required when using AI in your coursework.

AI tools can assist you in various ways, including:

  • Enhancing the grammar and structure of your writing, making your work more polished and professional.
  • Generating ideas and images that can spark creativity and help you develop your assignments.
  • Providing answers to questions using freely available information on the internet, which can aid in your research and understanding of complex topics.

However, it is crucial to use these tools responsibly. When you incorporate an AI tool into your academic work, you must ensure that you properly acknowledge and reference its use. This not only upholds academic integrity but also gives credit to the sources and tools that contributed to your work.

Please refer to the university's detailed guidance instructions on how to acknowledge and reference AI tools in your academic submissions. Following these guidelines will help you maintain transparency and adhere to the ethical standards expected in your academic journey.


Last modified: Wednesday, 14 August 2024, 12:27 PM