Research Guides: AI in Research: Working with Data

Digital Scholarship Services

DSS fosters the use of digital content and transformative technology in scholarship and academic activities. We provide consultative and technical support for a wide range of tools and platforms. We work with the campus community to publish, promote, and preserve the digital products of research through consultation, teaching, and systems administration. Our areas of expertise include data curation, research data management, computational research, digital humanities, and scholarly communication.

ZotGPT

ZotGPT
ZotGPT Chat is available to students, faculty, and staff at no cost. As part of OIT’s ongoing commitment to supporting the university’s emerging generative AI needs, ZotGPT Chat can help brainstorm ideas, develop plans, and find different ways to get things done; for any use related to classes, be sure to follow your instructor’s guidelines. Currently, Chat supports multiple models, chat history, file uploads, and a large context window. ZotGPT Chat is built using Microsoft Azure AI, Amazon AWS, and open web technologies.

Note

Use of AI is fraught with complications involving accuracy, bias, academic integrity, and intellectual property and may not be appropriate in all academic settings. This guide is meant more for academic researchers looking to utilize AI tools in their research.

Students are strongly advised to consult with their instructor before using AI-generated content in their research or coursework. For information on Generative AI take a look at the Generative AI and Information Literacy guide.

Intro

There are many AI tools coming out, this is just an example list of the types of tools available. These lists are a mix of free, trials, and premium. We do not endorse the use of one tool over another, instead researchers should evaluate tools to see if they fit their needs.

Write Code To Work With Data

Standalone, free chatbots excel at generating code, and walking users through how to code a program to accomplish a task. This is useful for working with data. Try using a free chatbot, like ChatGPT, to generate code for retrieving, analyzing, or visualizing data. Then paste it into your preferred development environment.

Look at the Writing Code tab for more information/resources.

Qualitative Data

Machine learning-based tools for automatic coding are not new in qualitative data analysis software, but some existing platforms and newer apps are introducing more generative AI features. When analyzing qualitative data from human participants, use caution in considering cloud-based tools. If personal or sensitive data is included, offline platforms may be needed to comply with university research security and IRB requirements for responsible data management.

AILYZE Lite
An AI tool for qualitative research that has a free tier and attempts to generate summaries, identify themes, count participant viewpoints, and answer questions about qualitative data
ATLAS.ti
The latest software version includes generative AI tools including: AI Coding, AI Intentional Coding, AI Suggested Codes, and AI Summaries. ATLAS.ti's AI tools send your data over the internet to OpenAI for processing. Their AI data security page describes their security and privacy measures for this transfer. This may make them inappropriate for use with research data that requires offline or certain levels of secure online storage and management.
Sentigem
Easy-to-use sentiment analysis tool for English language text.

Working with Text

Wolfram|Alpha
Wolfram|Alpha offers dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms and methods.
Powerdrill
Chatbot data analysis platform with a free tier limited to a few messages per month.
Julius
Chatbot data analyzer and visualizer with a free tier allowing a set number of messages per month.
Deepsheet
AI tool for conversational data analysis. Accepts many import formats and allows exporting responses and outputs.
Data Commons
Free Google initiative that organizes a wide range of publicly available data into a uniform visualization and download platform. The Explore interface uses generative AI to accept and interpret natural language questions.
Power BI
Power BI Desktop's AI Insights includes a collection of pre-trained machine learning models that can enhance data preparation. Access AI Insights in the Power Query Editor.
Tableau AI
Coming Soon: Brings "trusted generative AI" to the Tableau platform. Tableau Pulse is a reimagined data experience for business users, powered by Tableau AI.