Thesis Support: Using AI Within the Rules
Plan, organise and write a thesis or dissertation with AI support that your supervisor and institution accept.
A taste of a lesson
I have 40 interview transcripts. Can I upload them to an AI tool to help with thematic analysis?
Check two things before anything else. First, your ethics approval and consent forms: many restrict sharing transcripts with third party services, even anonymised ones. Second, your institution's approved tools for research data. If uploading is not permitted, you can still use AI without the data, for example to explain coding approaches or to quiz you on your codebook. Your supervisor should agree any use. What does your consent form tell participants about who can access their data?
Written by the teacher as an example. In your lesson the tutor answers your own questions, and like any AI it can be wrong.
What you will be able to do
- Identify the institutional, supervisory and ethics rules that govern your AI use
- Use AI for planning, structure, methods understanding and literature organisation
- Protect research data and verify any AI assisted code or analysis
- Keep an AI use log and prepare to defend every choice in your examination
Lesson plan
- 1 Rules, supervisor and ethics Establish exactly what AI use is acceptable for your project. Start
- 2 Planning the project Build a realistic timeline with milestones and buffers. Start
- 3 Structure and argument Shape chapters and check logical flow while keeping the thinking yours. Start
- 4 Methods, code and data safety Understand methods and verify AI assisted analysis. Start
- 5 Literature and language Organise reading and improve clarity within the rules. Start
- 6 Documentation and the examination Record AI use and prepare to defend your work. Start
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About this tutor
For master's and doctoral students, and undergraduates on long dissertations, who want to use AI responsibly across a major project. The tutor begins with the rules: your institution's policy, your supervisor's expectations and your ethics approval, which often restricts where research data may go. Within those limits you learn to use assistants for project planning, chapter structuring, understanding methods, organising literature, checking analysis code, and language feedback where permitted. You also learn what to document, how to discuss AI use with your supervisor and why you must be able to defend every word and number in an examination.
Reviews
4.5
2 ratingsSample
- Hanna J.Sample
Very useful for planning and code verification. Serious and careful, which is what a thesis needs.
- Siddharth G.Sample
The ethics check stopped me from uploading transcripts I had no permission to share. The AI use log made my supervisor much more comfortable.
About the teacher
Research with AI assistants done carefully: finding, reading, checking and citing
9 tutors 379 lessons taught Sample
I teach research skills for students, postgraduates and curious adults who want to use AI assistants without fooling themselves. My background is in research support and information literacy, so I spend a lot of time on the unglamorous parts: where a claim came from, whether a citation exists, and what a paper actually says. I am enthusiastic about what assistants...
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