COB 204 - Computer Information Systems

Always check with your professor before using any AI tools for an assignment. They will be able to provide council on what tools are and are not appropriate to use in their class.

Microsoft Copilot is the only approved generative AI tool for use at JMU

Copilot Chat is an artificially-intelligent chat service powered by the GPT chat model and the DALL-E text-to-image model. JMU students, faculty and staff have data protections when logged into Copilot, meaning that Microsoft does not monitor access and no data is ingested to train the AI model.

To protect yourself and JMU, always use Copilot by signing in with your JMU email address, password and Okta MFA. Then you'll see a shield among the icons at the top of the page. Don't use Copilot if you don't see a shield!

Your AI tool is mostly citing publicly available information

That means that information that is locked behind subscriptions or paywalls - such as many scholarly journal articles and almost all industry reports or market research reports --  likely won't be cited in its responses to your prompts. It's easy to assume that AI tools know "everything" but that isn't true, at least not yet. 

Be aware of your AI tool's Knowledge Cutoff Date

AI tools have access to information only up to a specific date, called the knowledge cutoff date. When using an AI tool for research, it's essential to identify this cutoff date and supplement the AI outputs with more up-to-date sources.

To test the knowledge cutoff date, ask the AI tool. Or ask whether a recently deceased celebrity is alive. Note: Copilot, the JMU approved tool, doesn't have a knowledge cutoff date.

AI Is Getting Smarter — and Less Reliable

Researchers Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld & Joanne Lipman (2025) contend: "The more that these models are “trained” on incorrect information — including misinformation and the frequent hallucinations they generate themselves — the less accurate they become. Essentially, the “wisdom of crowds” is turned on its head, with false information feeding on itself and metastasizing. ...

"Some [tools] are hallucinating more frequently, for reasons that aren’t clear to researchers. As the CEO of one AI startup told the New York Times, 'Despite our best efforts, they will always hallucinate. That will never go away.' "

Not all information can be uploaded to an AI tool

Some of the companies that sell business information are strict about how there information can be used in AI tools. Pay attention to the guidance on the pages of this research guide. And ask the business librarians if you're unsure if your proposed usage might be illegal.

  Acknowledge how you use AI in your work

When using generative AI tools for course assignments, academic work, or other forms of published writing, you should give special attention to how you acknowledge and cite the output of those tools in your work. Learn more about Citation & Attribution of AI.

When using AI tools, make sure you are using the right tool for the job. Tools, like ChatGPT or Copilot, can be useful for brainstorming, but fall short when it comes to finding academic articles. Try these AI-based Libraries' tools instead!