What is Gemini?
Gemini is a powerful chat tool created by Google. Think of it as a smart assistant you can talk to. You can type or speak your questions, and it will give you helpful answers. Gemini is built on Google's best AI technology, which allows it to understand and respond to you in a way that feels natural, like a conversation.
What can I do with Gemini?
- Writing and Brainstorming: If you're stuck on a project, Gemini can help you come up with ideas. It can also help write and edit emails, letters, or summarize a report. Gemini can make your writing clearer and more professional.
- Learning and Research: Gemini is great for exploring new topics. Ask questions about complex subjects, and it can give simple, easy-to-understand explanations. Gemini can also help create study guides, practice quizzes or other learning objects.
- Planning and Organizing: Gemini can assist in drafting schedules, organize thoughts and ideas and plan timelines for projects.
- Creating: Gemini can help create images from ideas using Canvas. Just describe what you want, and it can create an image.
How can Gemini help you at the university?
Gemini is a tool for everyone at the university, no matter your role.
- For Students: Gemini can help with homework, help explain a tough concept or provide feedback on a paper. Gemini can help find information quickly and put together a study plan.
- For Faculty: Gemini can save time by assisting in creating lesson plans, drafting emails to parents or other staff, and even generating quiz questions for classes.
- For Staff: Gemini can help with daily tasks like writing emails, summarizing long documents, and brainstorming ideas for a project. Gemini can be a sounding board and a task rabbit.
Also provided is a special tool called NotebookLM which works with Gemini. Upload documents, PDFs, and notes to NotebookLM, and Gemini can help summarize them, answer questions about them, and find important information across all of your materials. It's a great way to handle large amounts of information for research or other projects.
Take a look at the power behind the latest Chat AI tool provided to you by the Ohio State University.
Critical Note: Gemini can make mistakes. When using Gemini, double-check responses and do not rely solely on responses from Gemini without verifying the accuracy. See What is AI Hallucination? for details.
Start a Conversation in Gemini Chat
Gemini Chat can be used on the web or using the Gemini App on your mobile device.
To use the Gemini App on your mobile device you will first need to access your device’s app store and install Gemini. If you have an Android device, it may already be installed. Open the mobile app and log in using your Ohio State username (lastname.#@osu.edu) and password to start chatting.
- On your computer, go to Gemini Chat.
- In the text box at the bottom, enter your question or prompt.
Optionally, to add a file or image to your prompt, click Add files
.
Click Submit
to send your prompt.
Crafting a Prompt
With Generative AI chat crafting an effective prompt the first time is a skill that you can learn. Prompting requires four main components and then any extra information that may be helpful to the tool:
- Goal - What response do you want from your AI?
- Context - Why do you need it and who is involved?
- Source - Which information sources or samples should the AI use?
- Expectations - How should the AI respond to best meet your expectations?
- Additional Information – The more information and constraints you provide to the AI the better the results will be.
Here are two sample prompts. The first is a simple prompt that a faculty member may craft to help enhance a class component. The second is a complex prompt that a research team member may create during an interuniversity research project. Each of the components of a prompt are labeled.
Simple Sample Prompt for Enhancing a Class Component
(Goal) As a faculty member, I want to enhance a multiple-choice quiz for an online course to better assess student understanding and reduce the effectiveness of simple memorization. I need to create questions that test critical thinking and application of concepts, not just recall.
(Context) The quiz is for my introductory course, "The History and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence." The specific topic for this quiz is "The Turing Test and its Philosophical Implications." My current questions are too simplistic and I'm concerned students are using rote memorization to pass.
(Source) I've uploaded two documents:
- [file_1.pdf]: A chapter from a textbook that covers the core concepts of the Turing Test.
- [file_2.pdf]: A supplementary academic paper discussing modern critiques of the Turing Test.
(Expectations) I need you to generate a set of 10 multiple-choice questions based on the provided documents. The questions should be designed to:
- Have one correct answer and three plausible distractors.
- Focus on higher-order thinking skills, such as analysis, evaluation, and synthesis, rather than simple recall.
- The questions must not be answerable by simply searching the internet for a key phrase. They should require a deep understanding of the source material.
- For each question, provide the correct answer and a brief explanation of why it is correct.
- For each of the three incorrect answers (distractors), provide a brief explanation of why a student might mistakenly choose it, and clarify the misconception it represents.
(Additional Information) The target audience for this quiz is undergraduate students. The quiz is meant to be a formative assessment, so the goal is to help students learn from their mistakes. The provided explanations for correct answers and distractors will be used as a feedback mechanism for students after they submit their quiz.
Complex Sample Prompt for Interuniversity Research Collaboration
(Goal) Assume the role of a research assistant specializing in both computer science and psychology. Your primary task is to synthesize information and propose a framework for an interdisciplinary study. The goal is to generate a detailed project proposal outline that will serve as a starting point for a grant application.
(Context) My research group at [University A] is collaborating with a team at [University B] on a joint project. The objective is to investigate the neural correlates of collaborative problem-solving in remote teams. Specifically, we want to design a study that combines fMRI data from one team with behavioral data and survey responses from the other. Our main challenge is to bridge the methodological gaps between these two disparate datasets.
(Source) Use our internal knowledge base on psychology, computer science, research methodologies, and ethical guidelines for human-subjects research. There are no external documents to reference for this specific request.
(Expectations) Generate a single, comprehensive response that includes the following sections, each with its own heading:
- Data Integration Strategies: Propose at least two potential methods or computational approaches for aligning fMRI time-series data with event-based behavioral data (e.g., chat logs, cursor movements).
- Shared Ethical Guidelines: Draft a bulleted list of essential ethical considerations for a multi-site study. Focus on aspects like informed consent, data anonymization protocols, and intellectual property.
- Unified Research Questions: Propose three distinct research questions that can be answered by combining these datasets. These questions should be novel and directly address the collaboration's interdisciplinary nature.
The output must be formatted as a structured proposal outline. Maintain a formal, academic tone suitable for a grant proposal, and the response should not exceed 1,000 words.
(Additional Information) The fMRI data will be pre-processed using SPM, and the behavioral data will be collected via a custom Python script. These tools should be mentioned in the proposed framework where relevant. The core technical challenge you should focus on is temporal synchronization and data-level fusion.
Is every prompt going to be this complex? No, it could be as simple as “Find the deadlines for tuition on http://registrar.osu.edu”, but again, the more information provided to the AI the better the output. Think of it as an assistant that needs to be told exactly what to do, how to do it, and when. Do not assume it knows what you are thinking or expecting.
Important Information
Providing access to Google tools in addition to our Microsoft tenant allows members of our organization to collaborate with other institutions that may rely on the Google suite of products.
No one at the university is required to adopt the use of these available Google products.
Google Drive, Colab, NotebookLM, Gemini, Sheets, Docs, and Slides are collaborative tools designed to enable research in pursuit of the AI fluency initiative. As such, these services are approved for use with Research Data, Research Health Information, and FERPA data. Regulated data including (but not limited to) PCI, ITAR, CUI, and HIPAA are not approved for use with these services.
If you have questions about the sensitivity of data you plan to use with these services, please email the Data Governance Team.