Skip to Main Content
Libraries
askus Ask us
 

Prompt Engineering for GenAI - Beginner-Level Course

The ability to design meaningful prompts for GenAI tools is one of the core competencies required to successfully use them, and this workshop is designed to introduce to the basics of prompt design. By understanding how GenAI works and by exploring differ

Hands-on Activities: Let's practice the craft of Prompt Engineering

If you have any questions or get stuck as you work through this in-class GenAI exercise, please ask the instructor for assistance. --- And don't forget Principle Zero - the most important one! 

Be creative and have fun!

Before we begin...

1. Get set for our activities: Choose a GenAI chatbot

  • If you haven’t already, in your favourite web browser please open Microsoft Copilot.
  • If you are a UVic affiliate you can use a full version of Copilot that comes as part of UVic's Microsoft license by logging on with your UVic email address (e.g. yourname@uvic.ca).
  • The UVic version of Copilot runs on Canadian servers and does not share any of the prompts you create with Microsoft, or data inputs for training data -- which is great from a privacy perspective!

Note: You are free to use other GenAI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini for this workshop, but you will either have to create accounts for these services if you have not already done so, and will need to take extra steps to preserve your privacy

2. Method: Apply each principle or technique → Evaluate the outcome!

  • Let's go through the principles and techniques we just learned about.
  • We will use a «Bad Prompt vs. Improved Prompt» schema: 
    • First, use a bad or mediocre prompt → generic, vague, lacking detail or context, etc.
    • Next, improve that prompt → add specifics or context; ask for concrete outcome formats, etc.
    • Compare the «Before ↔ After» GenAI outcomes you get
    • Do you see any improvements?

Note: You can use the examples from the workshop's slides or you can come up with your own.

3. Let's get started...

Creative Commons License
This work by The University of Victoria Libraries is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License unless otherwise indicated when material has been used from other sources.