Dear Student, my name is Dr. Jeremy Y. Ng and I am a postdoctoral research associate working under the supervision of Dr. David Moher at the Centre for Journalology at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. As you undertake your academic training, you may have heard of artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots such as Bing Chat, ChatGPT, YouChat, and Google Bard, and perhaps you may have even used them! I am conducting a research study surrounding attitudes and perceptions of university students and postdoctoral fellows in biomedicine towards the use of these AI chatbots, specifically in the educational process, and I hope that you will be willing to partake in our short survey!

AI chatbots are programs designed to simulate conversations with human users through text or speech. In response to prompts and questions, these AI chatbots can generate relevant responses and material (e.g., text, images, figures, etc.) on a variety of topics. As you may already know, AI chatbots have recently taken the world by storm, and have been used for many purposes, including customer service, mental health support, and healthcare. In recent months, there has been growing interest in the use of AI chatbots in the educational process, and perhaps you have heard of students or instructors using them to support academic learning.

This study will be the first to provide a current, large-scale and international perspective on university students’ and postdoctoral fellows’ attitudes and perceptions towards the use of AI chatbots in the educational process. Your participation will provide valuable insights into how the student community perceives and accepts the use of AI chatbots in academic settings. The results of our survey may help inform the development and implementation of educational initiatives surrounding the use of AI chatbots in higher education settings and address potential concerns or barriers that students and school administrators may have regarding their use.

By completing the survey, you are providing your consent to participate in the study. Your participation is voluntary. Your responses will be completely anonymous. We anticipate the survey taking approximately 15 minutes to complete.

If you would like to participate in this study, please click on the link below to view the consent form and access the survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/1-559AICPA

Please do not complete the survey more than once.

Should you have any questions or concerns about our invitation, please do not hesitate to reach out to our principal investigator, Dr. David Moher, PhD at dmoher@ohri.ca, or me (co-investigator).

Thank you,

Dr. Jeremy Y. Ng, MSc, PhD (on behalf of the research team)