Using a Virtual Research Assistant - To Get Good Answers, We Must Ask Good Questions

Course Leader: Tom Naps
Time and Place (OLLI Course No. 10867) 4 Sessions: Mondays 10/27/2025–11/17/2025, 12:30PM– 2:00PM, Unity Church Unitarian Parish Hall, 733 Portland Ave, St Paul

Description: Love doing research projects? Want to develop a new OLLI course? Enjoy the process even more using an AI assistant! A research assistant, human or AI, requires guidance from you. In AI parlance, this means you must provide a context window for what you want it to do. Otherwise flawed assumptions and resulting inaccuracies will inevitably occur. Come with a topic in mind from any area that you want to explore in detail. We’ll start with hands-on instruction using the Perplexity.ai search engine and its research capabilities. By the final week, you will be well on your way to completing that deep dive or proposing your new course!

Cost: Participants must furnish their own laptop or tablet. They are also strongly encouraged to try a monthly subscription to Perplexity.ai ($20 per month). Below are details on how to set up a Perplexity login. I’ll discuss the advantages of a $20 monthly subscription at our first class meeting.

Class Questionnaire available at this link. Respond if haven’t already done so. If have revised your research project after submitting, just submit again.

Setting up a Perplexity account

1. Open a web browser and go to the official Perplexity AI website: https://www.perplexity.ai
2. On the website, look for the “Sign in” or “Sign up” button (usually in the lower-left corner of the screen) and click on it.
3. You will be offered several ways to create an account:
   • Choose “Continue with Google” or “Continue with Apple” if you want to use your existing Google or Apple account.
   • Or, select “Continue with Email” to use your personal email address. Simply enter your email, then create a password if prompted, and follow the on-screen instructions. You may need to check your email for a confirmation link or code to complete setup.
4. After signing up, you can start using Perplexity right away for free. No payment or subscription is required to get started.
5. If you prefer using a smartphone or tablet, there are free Perplexity apps available for both iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Android. You can find these in your device’s app store by searching for “Perplexity AI”.

This brief Youtube video illustrates the steps described above.

Course Outline:

• Our use case: Taking advantage of an AI tool in a task-specific fashion for researching a topic with which you are already somewhat familiar.
  
• Why Perplexity instead of the more hyped AI engines (ChatGPT, Gemini, Anthropic) that are often designed with “chat” in mind as well as search?
• Come with a topic in mind that you want to research. Perhaps similar to the way you would have written an excellent research paper or done an oral presentation back in days of yore.
• Hands-on lab instruction in the use of Perplexity
• During the first three weeks, you will be using Perplexity to:
  1. Take advantage of Perplexity spaces to organize your research endeavor.
  2. Establish a specific context for your queries/searches to ensure accurate detailed responses.
  3. Understanding the steps feature of Perplexity to understand the work it did for you and verify its “reasoning” in doing so
  4. Learn when and how to use DeepResearch mode in Perplexity.
  5. Explore options for the language models (LLMs) you can use with an explanation of the differences.
  6. Learn options for sharing your research with others including those who are not using Perplexity.
  7. Use the export features and options of Perplexity.
  8. Taking advantage of Perplexity’s ability to narrow searches to the resources you want it to use - entire web, academic sites, articles/papers you upload.
• In the fourth and final session you will get a chance to discuss the results of the research you have done on your topic and how you might consider moving on with that research in the future.

Other resources

• A link to the Perplexity space I am using in researching this course
  • Within that space a link to Perplexity’s summary of Stephanie Tully’s study done in “fast” mode
  • Within that space a link to Perplexity’s summary of Stephanie Tully’s study done in deep research mode
• Prompting Libraries and Techniques
  • The Wharton School of Business Library of LLM prompts to use for teaching and learning
  • Univ. of Alaska Prompt Library
  • Ethan Mollick’s Prompt Library

Accommodations

OLLI is committed to making our courses accessible for members, and we expect our course leaders to help us make that happen. OLLI recommends that Course leaders teaching in classrooms wear voice amplifiers, and we set up our Zoom courses so that live captioning is an option. The OLLI office may contact you to make additional accommodations on a case by case basis. If you require additional accommodations, please contact OLLI@umn.edu and we will do our best to support your needs.

Disability statement

The University of Minnesota is committed to providing equitable access to learning opportunities for all students. If you have, or think you have, a disability in any area such as, mental health, attention, learning, chronic health, sensory, or physical, please contact the DRC office on your campus (UM Twin Cities - 612.626.1333) to arrange a confidential discussion regarding equitable access and reasonable accommodations. Additional information is available on the DRC website: https://disability.umn.edu or email drc@umn.edu.