Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Data & Digital Scholarship Services (DDSS) partners with students, faculty, and staff by providing research support to facilitate data-focused research and teaching across the university in all disciplines. We have been working with tools and software that are now categorized under the Artifiical Intelligence (AI) umbrella for many years and are happy to help you on your research project involving AI.

If you are using AI in your project, please get in touch with us! There are many legal, ethical, and privacy considerations to keep in mind when working on your project involving data, digital scholarship, and AI. You can email us at datahelp@gmu.edu or schedule an appointment with one of our consultants. For more information, see the help page of the DDSS website.

Before you begin using an AI tool on your data, you must first consider the following:

• Review George Mason University (GMU) AI Guidelines, specifically the sections on Compliance and Data Security, Data Privacy, and Data Privacy and Confidentiality Violations. Also review GMU Information Technology Services (ITS) Guidance on Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools.
• Know how to classify and store your data in accordance with GMU ITS requirements.
• If your data includes library-licensed materials, contact datahelp@gmu.edu so we can review the terms of the license and ensure that using AI on the materials is a permissible activity. Some vendors explicitly forbid the use of AI tools with their materials.
• All other components of the research process remain the same! You still need to know your data, read privacy policies, understand the processes you are running on your data, and check for errors. Think critically about your data, the questions you are asking, how to analyze your data, and the results. 

Several of our research guides contain information on AI, data, and digital scholarship.