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Scholarly use of GenAI tools

This guide provides information on using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools responsibly in scholarly contexts.

About this page

This page describes select generative AI tools and their potential use in research activities. It is not a full list of generative AI research tools or an endorsement of any tool.

The generative AI landscape is continuously changing, so it is important to double check the privacy policies, features and capabilities of a tool before you use it.

NOTE:

If you are doing assignment-based research, always check with your professor or TA, and review your course guidelines, before using any generative AI tool.
If you are doing research with the aim of publishing or applying for funds, be sure to check the guidelines of the funding agency or publisher before using any generative AI tool.

This page was last updated September 9, 2025.

GenAI chatbots

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

When doing research or academic tasks, it is highly recommended to use research-focused GenAI tools over general AI chatbots to decrease hallucinations.

Website	https://chatgpt.com/
How it can help	Brainstorming Drafting Summarizing Answering specific questions Coding assistance Idea exploration
Strengths	Highly versatile and adaptable Great with general knowledge queries Has multiple GenAI models available Has web access via Bing and other partners (must turn on 'search' option)
Limitations	Not intended as a search engine Prone to 'hallucinations' (generating inaccurate information) Has had previous privacy concerns (Example: Thousands of private ChatGPT conversations found via Google search) The free version has limited access to certain models, and limited file uploads, data analysis, image generation, and voice mode
Where it sources its journal articles	Publicly available Internet sites Publicly available digital texts
Workshops	GenAI - Intro & Prompt Design

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

When doing research or academic tasks, it is highly recommended to use research-focused GenAI tools over general AI chatbots to decrease hallucinations.

Website	https://claude.ai/
How it can help	Brainstorming Drafting Summarizing Answering specific questions Coding assistance Idea exploration
Strengths	Has strong guiding GenAI ethics and principles Can handle longer prompts and documents than its competitors Often has more thoughtful, human-like outputs Has web access via Brave Search (a privacy-focused web browser)
Limitations	Not intended as a search engine No image generation May struggle with complex, domain-specific reasoning The free version has no access to deep research, and has usage limits that reset every 5 hours
Where it sources its journal articles	Publicly available Internet sites Publicly available digital texts
Workshops	GenAI - Intro & Prompt Design

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

When doing research or academic tasks, it is highly recommended to use research-focused GenAI tools over general AI chatbots to decrease hallucinations.

Website	https://copilot.microsoft.com/
How it can help	Brainstorming Drafting Summarizing Answering specific questions Coding assistance Idea exploration
Strengths	Has strong data protection under the UVic license (must sign in with Netlink ID) Great at productivity tasks Is automatically integrated with Microsoft's web browser, Edge Has web access via Bing
Limitations	Not intended as a search engine Requires a subscription to be integrated into other Microsoft apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) Copilot currently uses ChatGPT-4 for GenAI, and DALL-E for image generation; its capabilities are limited to those of these models The free version has limited file uploads and image generation
Where it sources its journal articles	Publicly available Internet sites Publicly available digital texts
Workshops	GenAI - Intro & Prompt Design

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

When doing research or academic tasks, it is highly recommended to use research-focused GenAI tools over general AI chatbots to decrease hallucinations.

Website	https://gemini.google.com/
How it can help	Brainstorming Drafting Summarizing Answering specific questions Coding assistance Idea exploration
Strengths	Strong fact-checking and search engine capabilities compared to its competitors Fast response times Has web access via Google
Limitations	Outputs can sometimes sound technical May struggle with complex, multi-step tasks, or tasks that require specialized knowledge The free version has limited image generation, deep research, and audio overviews
Where it sources its journal articles	Publicly available Internet sites Publicly available digital texts
Workshops	GenAI - Intro & Prompt Design

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

When doing research or academic tasks, it is highly recommended to use research-focused GenAI tools over general AI chatbots to decrease hallucinations.

Website	https://www.perplexity.ai/
How it can help	Brainstorming Drafting Summarizing Answering specific questions Coding assistance Idea exploration
Strengths	Stronger search engine capabilities than most competitors Known for citing directly to source material Lists all sources in a separate 'sources' tab Compiles images and videos from the web, when relevant to your question Has access to different GenAI models you can choose from, for testing and comparison (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) Has web access via a combination of Google, Bing, and its own web search methods.
Limitations	Outputs are often shorter, compared to competitors May take extra time to return an output, especially during peak usage times Free version has no image generation and has limited research searches every day.
Where it sources its journal articles	Publicly available Internet sites Publicly available digital texts
Workshops	GenAI - Intro & Prompt Design

AI & GenAI tools for finding articles

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://www.researchrabbit.ai/
How it can help	Searching for sources Tracking new publications Managing sources Visualizing research connections
Strengths	Makes visual maps to show connections between literature and authors You can create folders and organize your sources however you like Allows you to share and collaborate with other users
Limitations	Cannot summarize or analyze sources Only has a search engine (no GenAI chatbot)
Where it sources its journal articles	Semantic Scholar (A search engine for scientific articles) Open Alex (A catalog of works, including research articles, datasets, books, and dissertations)
Workshops	AI for Literature Reviews

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://www.semanticscholar.org/
How it can help	Searching for sources Summarizing articles Managing sources
Strengths	Is versatile across disciplines Has a good filter option Automatically creates short GenAI summaries for articles You can create folders and organize your sources however you like
Limitations	Only has a search engine (no GenAI chatbot) Results are limited to publishers Semantic Scholar has access to (may not reflect all that is available out there)
Where it sources its journal articles	Web-indexing (searching the internet for relevant information) Partnerships with academic publishers
Workshops	AI for Literature Reviews

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://www.undermind.ai/
How it can help	Searching for sources Summarizing articles
Strengths	Allows you to chat with a GenAI chatbot to explain what you're looking for Provides 'more relevant' results compared to its competitors Summarizes key findings and their relevance
Limitations	Takes approximately 5 minutes to complete a search The free version has a maximum of 5 searches per month, only analyzes abstracts, and has limited search results, report chats, and summaries.
Where it sources its journal articles	Semantic Scholar (A search engine for scientific articles)
Workshops	AI for Literature Reviews

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://www.litmaps.com/
How it can help	Searching for sources Tracking new publications Managing sources Visualizing research connections
Strengths	Creates visual maps that show connections between academic literature Allows you to start your search through multiple ways (title, keyword, author, doi, uploaded PDF, etc.)
Limitations	Focuses only on citation networks Cannot summarize or analyze sources Only has a search engine (no GenAI chatbot) The free version is limited to creating 2 litmaps at a time, and has a maximum of 20 inputs
Where it sources its articles	Semantic Scholar (A search engine for scientific articles) Open Alex (A catalog of works, including research articles, datasets, books, and dissertations) Other data providers
Workshops	n/a

GenAI tools for analysis and review

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://notebooklm.google/
How it can help	Brainstorming Summarizing sources Data extraction Answering specific questions about sources Source discussion, explanation, & analysis
Strengths	Has a chatbot to answer questions about your sources Minimal 'hallucinations' (inaccurate information) compared to competitors Cites sources with links to Google search results Has relatively strong data privacy Supports multimedia sources (PDFs, websites, videos, audio files, Google Docs, etc.) Has additional features, such as audio overviews and visual mind-mapping diagrams
Limitations	The information it provides is limited to the files and sources you upload to it The free version has a 100 notebook limit, each with 50 sources maximum. There is also a daily limit of 50 chats and 3 audio generations.
Where it sources its journal articles	You (requires you to upload the files and sources you want)
Workshops	GenAI - NotebookLM

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://elicit.com/
How it can help	Searching for sources Summarizing sources Data extraction Answering specific questions about sources Source discussion, explanation, & analysis
Strengths	Has a GenAI chatbot for you to ask questions about your sources Decreased 'hallucinations' (generating inaccurate information) Cites information from source material Allows you to upload your own PDF sources
Limitations	Limited to answering questions that have answers in academic papers Is weak in identifying general facts and theoretical questions (ex. how many cars were sold in Malaysia last year?) The free version provides a maximum of 4 article summaries at once, 2 columns of data at once, and 20 papers per month for data extraction.
Where it sources its journal articles	Semantic Scholar (A search engine for scientific articles) You (allows uploading PDFs)
Workshops	AI for Literature Reviews

NOTE: All the information below is based on the free version of the tools, at the time of writing.

Website	https://scispace.com/
How it can help	Searching for sources Summarizing sources Data extraction Answering specific questions about sources Source discussion, explanation, & analysis
Strengths	Has a wide range of features in one place (i.e. literature review search, citation generator, GenAI chatbots for you to ask questions about your PDF sources, etc.) Creates comparison tables for your sources, with GenAI-created columns you can tailor to your research Strongly focused on academic/scientific writing and understanding Has a Google Chrome extension and an Apple iOS app
Limitations	Can take extra time to deliver an output GenAI summaries can sometimes be simplistic Free version has limited usage credits per month, and restricted access to certain tools (ex. limited literature review searches)
Where it sources its journal articles	Open Alex (A catalog of works, including research articles, datasets, books, and dissertations) Semantic Scholar (A search engine for scientific articles) Google Scholar
Workshops	n/a

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