Primo Research Assistant

When you enter your research question, Primo Research Assistant works through the following process:

Primo Research Assistant covers a large range of academic sources, including journal articles, books and theses. It also includes some videos relevant to university studies.

However, it is important to note that it does not capture the full-range of sources that you can find by searching findit@flinders. This includes:

• The Library's Special Collections.
• Articles from publishers who have not given approval for their content to be used by Primo Research Assistant (e.g. Elsevier).

Please use findit@flinders search to capture these sources. 

No.

Primo Research Assistant does not hallucinate citations. This is one of the advantages of Primo Research Assistant over GenAI tools, such as Copilot Chat and ChatGPT.

When not linked to a web search, these tools simply generate references based on patterns from its training data. This means they have the potential to 'hallucinate' references - filling in gaps with what they identify as the most likely next word or part of a citation. When you (or the person marking your assignment) go to locate the reference, you discover that it does not actually exist. 

Primo Research Assistant does not have this problem. This is because it draws from a database of sources, rather than relying on patterns from training data. See 'How does Primo Research Assistant work?' above for more information. 

This is a very good question.

There are two important things to be aware of when reading the overview of sources provided by Primo Research Assistant.

1. It may miss key information. The overview only draws information from abstracts (summaries), rather than the full text of a source. This means that key information (such as full findings, limitations, implications, and applicability) may be missing from the overview. 
2. It may contain errors or hallucinations. This is because the underlying AI model does not 'understand' the text and might provide the incorrect pattern of words. 

Always follow the links provided by Primo Research Assistant to the full-text of the original source and rely on your own reading and understanding of the text. 

This depends on your assessment instructions. 

Even though Primo Research Assistant is provided by the University, you still need to check whether it is OK to use this tool and what you can use it for. 

For example, it should be OK to use Primo Research Assistant to identify relevant academic sources to use in your reference list. However, it might not be OK to use the AI generated overview. 

If you are unsure, just ask your topic coordinator. 

Primo Research Assistant can be a great place to start when doing a comprehensive or systematic search - but it is just a starting point.

It is useful when you are at the beginning of your project to:

• Get an overview of the topic, especially if you are somewhat new to the field. 
• Find a few relevant sources that you can then build upon (e.g. by using terminology used when searching databases, testing a search, following citation trails).
• Get ideas for synonyms, by looking at how Primo Research Assistant converts your question into a search. 

However, it is not an appropriate tool to rely on for a fully comprehensive search. This is because it only shows you 5 results at a time.

It is also not appropriate for systematic searches, where you need to report your search. This is because the search cannot be replicated by others.  

Yes.

If you tend to avoid using free GenAI tools because of privacy and security concerns, you can feel safe using Primo Research Assistant. 

This is because it sits behind your Flinders University login.