Annotation and Research with AI
In some courses, faculty are prototyping ways for students to use AI at different stages of the academic research and writing process. These range from annotating texts and working with handwritten notes, through transcription, finding sources in libraries and databases, and working with those sources, to drafting and revising papers and presentations.
Hand annotations that become course data (HISTLIT 90FK)
In HISTLIT 90FK, taught by Matthew Sohm, students came to the Learning Lab for a workshop where they marked up printed copies of the syllabus by hand in preparation for their capstone projects. Students circled readings, underlined, and wrote short comments in the margins; the sheets were photographed; and a vision model extracted each mark into a record linked to the specific reading or week it sat next to. Before the meeting ended, the class could ask which readings drew the most attention, where the room converged, and where it split, and answer with evidence it had produced together that morning. The activity requires no student coding and fits inside a single class meeting. The goal is to let a class see its own collective reading and discuss it as evidence, and other printed artifacts, such as a map, a timeline, or a reading, can anchor the same activity.
To set up an annotation activity for your course materials, contact the Bok Center.
AI literacy for senior thesis writers (SOCIOL 99A)
Seniors in Isabel Jijon's Sociology tutorial worked through live demonstrations of AI support for tasks they could meet in their thesis research, with special emphasis on ethical and methodological considerations. Students left with take-home guides to responsible AI use in research. The session's goal was to help students develop judgment that thesis writers in every field need: distinguishing which research tasks AI can help with and which decisions stay the researcher's own.
To discuss the possibility of an AI workshop for your course, contact the Bok Center.