Artificial Intelligence

Using subscribed products along with artificial intelligence (AI) tools for research is a new area for libraries, businesses, researchers, and students. Libraries are starting to notice clauses in some licenses that allow for limited use of AI tools with certain subscribed products. So far, these licenses usually prevent users, like faculty, staff, and students, from doing the following:

• Creating a competing product or service for others to use.
• Disrupting how the subscribed products work.

The licenses also specify that users must:

• Only use limited portions of the subscribed products for research, such as training an AI algorithm.
• Use a closed or self-hosted environment that’s only available to faculty, staff, or students at UCalgary.

The requirement for a closed or self-hosted environment aims to ensure that research activities don’t inadvertently train a third-party AI tool, except for creating prompts or questions. It also aims to ensure that any outside providers or tools won’t retain parts of the subscribed products.

These restrictions may not apply to content that is openly licensed, like material under a Creative Commons license.

If you are interested in pursuing research that uses library-licensed products in combination with an artificial intelligence tool, please contact us ('Collections Support' collections@ucalgary.libanswers.com) to discuss your project.